mexico city

Every night before going to bed, Ela Minus shuts off her phone.

Oftentimes, the Colombian artist-producer won’t even turn it back on until the following afternoon. One day, in mid-September, when Minus logged on, she received an unexpected flurry of messages from both close friends and people she hadn’t spoken to in years. Each notification was congratulatory, but Minus had no idea what had transpired the night before.

It turns out the Latin Grammy nominations had been announced — and her song “QQQQ,” off her 2025 sophomore album, “Día,” was nominated for Latin electronic music performance.

“I was very confused. Nobody said what was going on in their messages. They were just telling me congratulations,” says Minus, who laughs about the moment over our Zoom call. She dialed in from Mexico City, a few hours before catching a flight to Italy to kick off a new leg of her “Día” tour.

“As soon as I figured out that I was nominated, I turned my phone off again. I needed a second to myself. To be completely honest, it was not even a little bit in my radar. I didn’t even know we submitted anything.”

Since its release last January, “Día” has left lasting impressions on critics and fans alike. In 10 synth-powered tracks, Minus channels her fluctuating emotional state as she navigated a period of reckoning — characterized by a life almost entirely lived in airplanes, hotel rooms and foreign studios — through ominous synthesizer chords and blasts of vigorous dance beats.

Much like her music, her path to Latin Grammy-worthy acclaim has been anything but linear.

“It’s not like I started singing on television, and now I’m at the Latin Grammys. It’s been an interesting path of continuous surprises and unexpected turns,” says Minus. “Not to praise myself, but every time I’ve taken an unexpected turn or been presented with it, something amazing comes out of it.”

“Every time I’m in L.A. for a longer period of time, I feel like I retire into myself more. Staying downtown too, felt very aggressive, yet familiar to me,” says Minus, of how L.A. influenced her latest record.

(Alvaro Ariso)

Minus was born as Gabriela Jimeno Caldas, in Bogotá, Colombia. She got her start in music as a drummer in a local punk band called Ratón Pérez, which she joined at the age of 12. Her percussion skills led to her leaving Colombia to attend the Berklee College of Music, where she double majored in jazz drumming and music synthesis. At school, she was introduced to hardware and software synths, and continued to explore her drumming abilities by experimenting with electronica.

After working as a touring drummer and helping design synth software, Minus’ solo career started to take off with the release of her 2020 debut album, “acts of rebellion.” She created the entire project by herself, from the depths of her at-home studio in Brooklyn. Composed of icy club beats and steadfast synthetics, she describes the album as “sonically concise,” in that she intentionally used limited instrumentation.

When approaching her 2025 follow-up record, she says that she yearned to pick up new instruments, switch up the process and hopefully end up with an entirely different result.

In a sudden turn of events, her rent in New York quadrupled because of COVID-19 inflation rates, and she had to leave the city. She says her life quickly became a “mess.” But her next steps were clear as ever — instead of settling into a new apartment, she took on a nomadic lifestyle, with making new music as her only goal.

“I wanted to start and finish a record in the moment, while all of this is happening, and when I’m feeling this way,” says Minus, who says she was feeling a self-imposed artistic pressure. “I figured I could postpone my personal life out of wanting to make this record.”

Over the course of six months, she hopped from city to city, living out of her suitcase and renting recording studios. She ended up in places like London, Mexico City and Seattle. The repetitious process of packing up and settling into new places allowed her to easily decipher which tracks she wanted to keep pushing and which ones she would leave behind.

Along her journey, she lived in downtown Los Angeles for a short period of time. She says she finds the city to be a bit “alienating” with a “uniquely heavy” energy. To her luck, the city’s ethos aligned with the sonic soundscape she was building out in “Día.”

“Every time I’m in L.A. for a longer period of time, I feel like I retire into myself more. Staying downtown too, felt very aggressive, yet familiar to me,” says Minus, who noted the lack of people walking, the amount of traffic in the streets and the boundless nature of Los Angeles.

The album began at a low point in Minus’ life, where she seems to be going through an identity crisis. Over spacey sirens and an accumulating bass line, on “Broken,” she admits to being “a fool / acting all cool” and being on her knees, without a sense of faith. Throughout the first several tracks, she confronts her inner monologue through candid lyrics, offering herself a reality check.

“Producing beats with really low bass lines feels comfortable to me. It makes me want to open up naturally to get to the point of writing lyrics and singing. When the production is more sparse, like with a guitar, it’s harder to write more vulnerably. It feels kinda cheesy,” says Minus.

“In myself, there’s this constant cohabitation of dark and light and aggressive and sweet sounds,” she continues. So when vulnerable feelings come out, the really hardcore, distorted sounds follow.”

Songs like “Idk” and “Abrir Monte” simulate the experience of being submerged as a muffled, yet pounding bass line takes charge. Other times, as in “Idols,” Minus’ dissected blend of club pop and dark ambient sounds lends a grimy, industrial feel to her mechanical melodies. She captures the commonplace (yet cathartic) experience of losing yourself in a sweaty mass of limbs on a dance floor.

The Latin Grammy-nominated track “QQQQ” marks a turning point in the album. It was a song she wrote in a matter of hours to depict her own mindset change. “I was very aware that [for] the first half of the record, there was a lot of tension. I just needed a moment of release for this [album] to land fully. I needed a moment of uncontrollable sobbing on the dance floor.”

The album ends with her resolving to confront her struggles with self-acceptance, with the frankly written “I Want To Be Better” — which escalates with the feverish punk pulse of “Onwards.”

To her, the album is equal parts apocalyptic and hopeful, reflecting both the chaos of the outside world and her newfound inner peace. Since making the record and performing it frequently, she says she’s internalized the lessons she learned along the way. “When you’re going through something, sometimes the only thing you can trust is time. Your perspective will change, maybe for better or for worse.

“Time heals,” adds Minus. “That’s something I learned for sure.”

Ela Minus will be headlining at the Echoplex in Echo Park on Oct. 29.

MEXICO CITY — It was pouring buckets of rain at the Estadio GNP Seguros on Saturday night, when Oasis played one of two sold-out reunion shows in Mexico City.

Lined at the entrance were tents stuffed with bootleg tour merch and fans seeking respite from the water. You could hear the sloshing of wet socks and Adidas Sambas as they price-checked knockoff memorabilia emblazoned with the Gallagher brothers’ iconically muggy faces.

For 200 pesos, you could get a T-shirt with Noel and Liam Gallagher as fighting cats, or characters from “Peanuts” and “The Simpsons.”

While a downpour isn’t the ideal weather condition for an outdoor concert — my Bohemian FC x Oasis collab football jersey went unseen under a fashionable rain parka — it was certainly fitting for a band that routinely, perhaps obsessively, sings about rain. Yet for Mexican fans of Oasis who’ve anxiously waited years to finally see the brothers reunite, it was all sunsheeeeIIIIIINE.

Outside the entry gates, father and son Santiago and Omar Zepeda, both sporting bucket hats, had a palpable buzz radiating off them as they eagerly waited to enter the stadium. It was a multigenerationally significant day for them.

“I came for the first time with my dad in ’98 at the Palacio de Deportes to see Oasis, and now I get to bring my son,” said Santiago, who came from Guadalajara with his 14-year-old in tow. “There was a moment that I said we’ll just go without tickets and see what we do. We’ll get in because we’ll get in. I feel incredible to be able to have done what I did with my father 27 years later now with my son.”

In August of last year, the Manchester-bred Gallagher brothers — who had been openly feuding for decades — declared that war was over on the 30th anniversary of their 1994 juggernaut debut, “Definitely Maybe.”

“The guns have fallen silent. The stars have aligned. The great wait is over,” they announced. As reunion tour dates opened, and two Mexico City stops were announced, Mexican fans expressed pure elation and flooded Ticketmaster once the sale went live. As you can imagine, it was online bedlam.

Waiting in the Ticketmaster queue filled Esteban Ricardo Sainz Coronado, 24, and Sara Pedraza, 25, with dread. The young couple came in from Monterrey, Nuevo León, but it was uncertain whether they’d make it to what Coronado called “a collective reunion that’s cultural and transcends more than music history.”

Pedraza waited three hours in Ticketmaster’s virtual line, almost missing school and her chance to secure seats as she kept getting bumped off the site. “I stubbornly kept trying and after I don’t know how many attempts, it worked,” Pedraza said. “It was such a huge relief.”

Like Coronado and Sainz, the reunion tour is millions of fans’ first opportunity to see Oasis play live, as they would have been far too young or not even born yet during their heyday. For longtime Oasis heads, it was a chance to once again be in community with their favorite band.

British bands have long had a foothold in Mexico’s alternative scenes, with fans of all ages still packing bars and venues to hear Primal Scream, Blur, Pulp and, of course, Morrissey and the Smiths. These groups have had an enduring, impassioned following that has been explored in books, articles and films, with Mexicans often feeling a spiritual and cultural connection to the U.K.’s music scene stemming back to the Beatles. Oasis could have sold out shows across Mexico 10 times over.

After acrimoniously (and unsurprisingly) breaking up in 2009, the hope to ever see the Gallaghers fill a stadium with the staple of acoustic jam sessions worldwide, “Wonderwall,” dimmed. The brothers’ endless swipes at each other in the media post-breakup didn’t give fans hope they’d get back to “living forever.” Mexican fans even prayed to La Virgen de Guadalupe that the infamously combative brothers wouldn’t break up again even hours before showtime.

“As long as they don’t fight!” said Hector Garduño, who came to the show with his partner, Sofia Carrera, from Querétaro. “That’s what we want, for them not to fight.”

Gracias a la virgencita, the tour has seemingly been all love. The skies eventually cleared up on Saturday, and the stadium indeed filled with Oasis’ soaring, anthemic bangers for 2 ½ hours. For days leading up to the Mexico City date, fans in my orbit and social feeds debated how the show would compare with the crowd at Pasadena’s Rose Bowl, where Oasis played the previous weekend.

“[Mexican audiences are] on another level,” said Garduño. “I think these dudes are going to be taken by surprise. I expect jumping, screaming, crying; the emotion of hearing those songs that really move you.”

Mauri Barranco, who came to the show with her best friend, said “I feel like we give a lot of ourselves. That’s why so many artists like coming to Mexico.”

Meanwhile, Alberto Folch, from Mexico City, saw his own audience participation as a challenge. “With all the vibes, with all the emotion, we’re ready to jump, to show them what Mexico is made of,” he said. “Tonight we’re rock ‘n’ roll stars.”

The 65,000 fans in attendance undoubtedly showed up sobbing and screeching with unbridled elation. Liam Gallagher played to the locals, donning a sombrero de charro during “Wonderwall” and the show closer “Champagne Supernova.” The band sounded as if no time had passed since its salad days, with the members’ vocals and musicianship arguably tighter than ever — perhaps a positive side effect of pulling back from the rock star lifestyle now that they’re in their 50s. The sound reverberated clean across the stadium as well (shoutout to L-Acoustics, who provided the sound for the reunion tour), and was praised nonstop by fans I spoke to throughout the weekend. I heard a lot of emphatic cries of “el sonido, güey!”

I pogo’d along with my fellow “madferits” as we turned away from the stage and linked arms to do the Poznań: a signature move at every show, borrowed from Manchester City F.C. fans. During “Cigarettes & Alcohol,” we shouted every lyric and were sprayed by flying beers thrown in raucous excitement.

I’ve never felt more giddy to get splashed with spit-riddled beer — and seemingly neither did anyone around me, who shouted joyful obscenities in Spanish. Three men behind me even sobbed into each other’s chests during “Don’t Look Back in Anger” and the stadium filled with cellphone lights as Noel Gallagher crooned “Talk Tonight.”

The rain didn’t fall again, but even if it had, it would have still felt like the sun.

The Mayan, a popular music venue and nightclub in downtown L.A., announced Monday morning that it will be closing under its current management after a 35-year run.

“It is with heavy yet grateful hearts that we announce The Mayan will be closing its doors at the end of September, after 35 unforgettable years,” read a statement from the venue’s Instagram page. “To our loyal patrons, community and friends: thank you for your unwavering support, your trust and the countless memories we’ve created together. You made every night truly special.”

The announcement also called on longtime and potentially new patrons to celebrate the club’s final months in fashion, with weekly Saturday dance nights through Sept. 13.

It is currently unknown what, if anything, the historic venue will be used for after the Mayan shutters.

The Mayan did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for information.

The Mayan Theater — located at 1038 S. Hill St., next door to the Belasco — first opened Aug. 15, 1927, with a performance of George Gershwin’s Broadway musical “Oh Kay.” As its name alludes to, the theater is one of the best known examples of the Mayan Revival architectural movement that took place in the U.S. during the 1920s and 1930s, which drew inspiration from pre-Columbian Mesoamerican structures.

As The Times reported in 1989, the giant bas-relief figures on the venue’s exterior are of the Maya god Huitzilopochtli seated on a symbolic earth monster. The three-tiered chandelier in the theater — rigged for red, blue and amber lights — is a replica of the Aztec calendar stone found near Mexico City. The design of tapered pillars was inspired by the Palace of the Governors at Uxmal, a Maya ruin on Yucatán Peninsula dating from AD 800.

Mexican anthropologist and sculptor Francisco Cornejo assisted the architects to craft a building that was based on authentic designs of pre-Columbian American societies.

During the Great Depression, the theater was rented out to the Works Projects Administration, which operated it as an Actors Workshop theater. In 1944, Black producer, director and entrepreneur Leon Norman Hefflin Sr., staged a production of the popular and well-reviewed musical “Sweet ‘N Hot,” which starred Black film and stage icon Dorothy Dandridge.

The Fouce family gained ownership of the theater in 1947 and shifted the venue’s programming toward Spanish-language film screenings and performers. By the early 1970s, Peruvian-born filmmaker and actor Carlos Tobalina gained ownership of the theater and changed the programming to focus on pornographic and X-rated films.

In 1990, the Mayan was brought under new management and inhabited its current form as a nightclub and music venue. The city has since declared the building as an official L.A. Historic-Cultural Monument.

The Mayan has been used as a shooting location for many film productions, including the 1992 box-office smash “The Bodyguard,” starring Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston; the 1998 skit-to-feature film “A Night at the Roxbury;” the 1979 Ramones-led musical comedy “Rock ‘n’ Roll High School;” and, most recently, the Netflix wrestling-themed series “GLOW.”

In recent years, the Mayan has played host to the cheeky lucha libre and burlesque show called Lucha VaVoom de La Liz and has held concerts by acts such as Jack White, M.I.A. and Prophets of Rage.

Hermanos Gutiérrez are heading to late night.

Known for their dreamy, guitar-heavy instrumental tracks that fuse Latin music with Western sounds, the Ecuadorian-Swiss duo will take a break from their current European tour to make their national television debut on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on Tuesday, June 24.

“We are incredibly honored to be performing on national TV for the very first time,” Hermanos Gutiérrez told The Times. “Sharing our music with the world means so much to us, and we can’t wait to step onto that stage.”

The siblings, Estevan and Alejandro Gutiérrez, released their sixth studio album, “Sonido Cósmico,” last summer to critical acclaim. It was the second consecutive LP produced by Dan Auerbach, the Black Keys frontman, and released via his record label, Easy Eye Sound.

Hermanos Gutiérrez were tapped to perform at Coachella last year and recently had sold-out performances at L.A.’s Greek Theatre and Mexico City’s Teatro Metropólitan.

The band announced on Instagram in April that they were following their summer tour across Europe with a 12-date turn across the U.S. Hermanos Gutiérrez will bring their psychedelic atmospheric sound to California with a stop in Saratoga on Sept. 19, followed by a show in Ojai the following night.

The duo recently collaborated with Mexican singer-songwriter Natalia Lafourcade on her latest album, “Cancionera,” and will be featured in Adrian Quesada’s upcoming “Boleros Psicodélicos II,” which will be released on June 27.

There is no containing a star of Belinda’s caliber.

In the making of her fifth studio album “Indómita,” the Mexican singer and actor began to understand that what made her hard to contain — in life, in love and in her career — was worth writing an album about.

“I was reading a book and all of a sudden the word ‘indómita’ appeared,” says Belinda in an audio call from her home in Mexico City. “For two days, I kept dreaming of that word. ‘Indómita, Indómita,’” says Belinda during a recent audio call from her home in Mexico City.

Out on June 5, “Indómita” is an assortment of corridos tumbados, reggaeton, rock and pop ballads with exciting collaborations — ranging from the American rock band Thirty Seconds to Mars to Latin stars like Tokischa and Tito Double P.

“This album is very special, not just for women but for everyone who feels untameable, who feels strong, who feels like a warrior,” she explains.

The title directly translates to indomitable, or untameable, a term that seems to perfectly suit the 35-year-old artist, whose long and prosperous career made her an international household name.

Born in Madrid, Spain, as Belinda Peregrín Schüll, but known widely by her mononym, Belinda began her legacy in Mexican television, taking on lead roles in early 2000’s childhood telenovelas like “Amigos x siempre,” “Aventuras en el tiempo,” and “Cómplices Al Rescate,” where she played a set of twins who has been separated at birth. She also broke through the Disney sphere, appearing in the popular 2006 sequel of “The Cheetah Girls 2” as Marisol, a Spanish pop star and competitor of the titular girl band.

Belinda’s music career has been equally as fruitful, including a stint as a singing coach on the TV competition “La Voz” and dozens of hit singles, such as the popular “Amor a Primera Vista,” a 2020 collaboration with Los Ángeles Azules and Lalo Ebratt. Her previous studio albums, 2003’s “Belinda,” 2006’s “Utopía,” 2010’s “Carpe Diem” and 2013’s “Catarsis” have all graced Billboard’s Top Latin Albums chart.

Her new LP marks a personal artistic triumph for the artist, given its unique regional Mexican edge. “300 Noches,” her 2024 corrido track with Natanael Cano, made No. 4 on the Mexican Billboard pop chart and appeared on the Billboard Global 200, making it Belinda’s first appearance on the chart. Other corridos tumbados, like the rugged “La Cuadrada” featuring Tito Double P and the blistering “Mírame Feliz” with Xavi, unleash a new alter ego of the famed singer known as “Beli bélica,” the latter of which means “warrior” in Spanish.

“With this album, I’d like to open up the door to more women to sing corridos tumbados of heartache,” says Belinda.

The record is already scorching hot, with songs like “Cactus” making a subtle, prickly nod to her past relationship with Mexican crooner Christian Nodal, who famously tattooed her eyes on his chest. There’s also the reggaeton-corrido fusion called “La Mala,” which coyly addresses the rumors that Belinda is a cold, calculated lover — which heightened in the wake of her high-profile relationship.

Still, her notoriety as a heartbreaker has simultaneously granted her sainthood status from fans, who created fake prayer cards of the enchanting star to bolster their own love life.

“This album was made up of things that we live every day,” says Belinda. “Someone breaks our heart, we feel better, we fall in love, they break our heart again and so forth. Life is like that.”

But “Indómita” is much more than Belinda’s foray into regional Mexican music; there’s also “Jackpot,” a dazzling club alongside Kenia Os, a tribute to lightning-fast cars in “Rayo McQueen” — and even her love of anime in “Death Note.”

“I’m a versatile artist and this record reflects that,” says Belinda.

This interview has been edited and shortened for clarity.

What motivated you to release this album over a decade after your last one, “Catarsis”?
I know it might seem like it’s been a long time, but I never left. I’ve always been involved in music. I’ve done collaborations with Los Ángeles Azules, “Amor a Primera Vista,” that was super popular, with Ana Mena in “Las 12,” Lola Indigo and Tiny in “La Niña de la Escuela,” with Juan Magán and Lapiz Conciente in “Si No Te Quisiera.”

I’ve made a lot of music, but obviously this record means so much to me. It’s not the same to work on collaborations and music for other artists as it is to do it for myself. The album is full of collaborations with Thirty Seconds to Mars, who are one of my favorite bands of all time. It also has Kenia Os, Tito Double P, Neton Vega, who’s a hard-hitting act in the world of reggaeton and corridos tumbados, and Natanael Cano, who I can’t forget either. It’s a complete album, with lots of different styles.

Many of the songs on this album are corridos tumbados. Why did you dive into that style of music?
It’s a really stigmatized genre, and a genre that is specifically for men and for certain kinds of lyrics. I wanted to break that [idea] and say that instruments used — like the trombone, the alto horn, tololoche — aren’t just for men or for specific lyrics or a specific market. There can be more romantic lyrics, a mixing of sounds like pop with urban music. The challenge was also getting my collaborators to believe in this too, since they are used to other topics, but everyone trusted me and believed in the song[s] since the beginning and it was organic.

Tell me more about your collaborations. What did you learn from them and what did you teach them?
They’re so talented and play instruments very well, especially Natanael Cano — you can tell him to play any instrument. He’s very talented. We were in the studio and he started to play a Metallica song and I was like, “Wow!” Although we might pigeonhole them into this genre, they’re very versatile and talented. I admire them.

One of the singles of this album, “Cactus,” talks about your feelings toward an ex. How did it feel to release your emotions? And would you say that it helped you heal, as the song suggests?
I love healing through music. The first phrase of the song goes: “Therapy helps, but music heals more bad-ass.” Perhaps I couldn’t express with words what I can through music. As a composer we express our emotions through our lyrics. But it’s also important that people remember that not everything is based on experiences. It’s music so that people can identify themselves in love or heartache. I never mention anyone by name, but people can make their own conclusions or deductions. At the end of the day, I make music for people who can relate to the lyrics.

You’ve been in the spotlight for so many years. Do you believe there are two Belindas that exist? As in, one that is for the public and one that’s just for close family members?
Of course, I can guarantee it. There’s also a song where I express that idea that many times people have categorized me as a bad character, “La Mala.” At the end of the day, I know who I am and the people around me know the heart that I have — my feelings and intentions, my day-to-day. That’s what counts for me. If I paid attention to every comment [people made of me], my God, I’d be locked up in a room without an exit, which sometimes does happen to me.

How do you tune out those outside critics?
I try not to see these things. Sometimes it’s inevitable but I’m also not going deep into the web to find what people are saying. I do other more productive things that nourish me.

Obviously it hurts, because even if certain comments are not true, they still hurt because they carry negative energy. I don’t want to give into these comments as truth, but that energy of negativity or insult or humiliation or anything that comes from a negative side, obviously has a consequence. So one has to be careful about how they express themselves, because there’s so much negativity that exists, so it would be nice if we could just throw a bit more of love.

I heard you’re a big anime fan, and you show that in your song “Death Note.” Why was it important to include that?
I’m [an] otaku, even if people don’t believe it. I really like anime. I’m a fan of “One Piece,” “Death Note,” everything, “Attack on Titan,” but “Death Note” is my favorite. It’s pretty dark, but Ryuk is one of my favorite characters in life. I’ve always been a fan of terror, because within the darkness, there’s always some light.

You were born in Spain but were raised in Mexico. How have you navigated both identities?
I can’t pick one or the other, but I’ve always considered myself Mexican, because I was raised in Mexico and my accent is Mexican. I’m very, very much Latina.

What advice would you give your younger self?
Don’t take everything so personally and enjoy life. When I was little, I would think too much about what the world thought. I was always like, “do you like it? Oh you don’t, why?” and I would suffer. And now if I like it, OK, and if no one else likes it, then too bad, I like it!

MEXICO CITY — In a packed nightclub in Mexico City, hundreds of young people sang along as a band played a popular song narrating the life of a foot soldier for the Sinaloa drug cartel.

I like to work/ And if the order is to kill / You don’t question it.

And for those who misbehave/ There’s no chance to explain/ I throw them into the grave.

Narcocorridos — or drug ballads — are more popular than ever in Mexico, where a new generation that came of age during the ongoing drug war has embraced songs that recount and often glamorize both the spoils and perils of organized crime.

But the genre is increasingly under attack. About a third of Mexico’s states and many of its cities have enacted some kind of ban on the performance of songs about narcos in recent years, with violators subject to heavy fines and jail time.

Mexico City may be next. Mayor Clara Brugada said she plans to introduce a law that would bar the songs from being played at government events and on government property.

“We can’t be promoting violence through music,” she said.

Musicians perform at the popular Los Guitarrazos event in Mexico City, where narcocorridos, or drug ballads, are common.

The bans, which come amid President Trump’s hyper-focus on drug trafficking in Mexico, have sparked debates here about freedom of expression and state censorship and have raised provocative questions: Do narcocorridos merely reflect reality in a nation gripped by powerful drug gangs? Or do they somehow shape it?

Said Amaya, the organizer of Guitarrazos, the event at the nightclub in Mexico City where multiple singers performed narcocorridos last week, said government focus should be on improving security, not persecuting young musicians.

“If you change the reality, the music might change,” Amaya said. “But you’re not going to change the reality by censoring songs.”

Drug ballads belong to the genre of corridos, a musical tradition born in the 1800s that helped chronicle life at a time when many people couldn’t read or write.

Each song told a story. There were corridos about the exploits of bandits and outlaws, some of them Robin Hood-esque characters who outwitted oafish authorities and helped the poor. Others narrated chapters of the Mexican Revolution or the U.S. invasion of Mexico in 1846.

In more recent years, as Mexico became a key gateway for the U.S. drug market, enriching some people and claiming the lives of hundreds of thousands of others, musicians have described that, too.

“The entire social history of Mexico is narrated through corridos,” said José Manuel Valenzuela Arce, a sociologist in Tijuana. “It’s an intangible part of our cultural heritage.”

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1. An audience member wears a diamond chain on the dance floor at Los Guitarrazos. 2. Drug ballads belong to the genre of corridos, a musical tradition born in the 1800s that helped chronicle life at a time when many people couldn’t read or write.

Valenzuela wrote a book about the newest version of drug ballads, known as corridos tumbados, which combine acoustic guitar, brassy horns and the aesthetic and lyrical content of U.S. gangster rap. Proponents of the music, like artist Peso Pluma, who performs in ballistic vests and sings of diamond-encrusted pistols and shipments of cocaine, have brought the genre to global audiences.

The 25-year-old musician, whose name translates to “Featherweight,” was the seventh most streamed artist in the world on Spotify last year. In 2023, former President Obama included in his top 10 songs of the year a Peso Pluma song that does not touch on drug trafficking.

Musicians dedicated to the genre have long faced backlash from the government, which since the 1980s has tried, at various times, to ban the music.

But the long-standing controversy exploded back into public life this year after a concert in Michoacan state by the band Los Alegres del Barranco, which displayed images of Nemesio Rubén Oseguera Cervantes, better known as El Mencho, who heads the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. The band played at a venue not far from a gruesome cartel training camp that authorities had just discovered.

The concert outraged many Mexicans, and Michoacan Gov. Alfredo Ramírez Bedolla soon announced a ban on public performances that glorify crime and violence. That was followed by similar measures in other states, including Aguascalientes, Queretaro and Mexico state.

A performer plays his guitar with a beer bottle at Los Guitarrazos, a Mexico City event featuring artists playing the northern Mexican genre corridos.

Days later, the Trump administration announced it was revoking the U.S. visas of the members of Los Alegres del Barranco.

“The last thing we need is a welcome mat for people who extol criminals and terrorists,” Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau said on X.

President Claudia Sheinbaum says she does not support the bans, but also doesn’t support the music. She recently announced a national song competition for compositions about subjects other than drug trafficking.

“More than banning, it’s about educating, guiding, and getting young people to stop listening to that music,” she said.

But the bans have momentum — a recent poll found that 62% of those surveyed support prohibitions on narcocorridos — and they have put the genre’s stars in a tricky position. Their fans demand they play their hits, but doing so is increasingly risky.

Performing in one of the states that had banned the songs last month, artist Luis R. Conríquez refused to play his ballads that romanticize drug traffickers.

Audience members were enraged, forcing him off stage as they flung insults, beer bottles and chairs, and later destroyed his band’s instruments.

A singer performs at Los Guitarrazos, an event featuring artists playing the northern Mexican genre corridos, on Tuesday, May 6, 2025 in Mexico City, Mexico.

Others musicians, such as corridos tumbados star Natanael Cano, have pressed on despite the bans.

The 24-year-old performed at an annual fair in Aguascalientes state this month just days after the local authorities warned musicians not to play narco songs.

He began his set with songs from his repertoire that touch on love and other subjects. But soon fans were pleading for popular songs such as “Cuerno azulado,” which talks about blue-tinted AK-47s and pacts between drug traffickers and the government.

Cano first told audience members they should press their leaders to roll back the bans.

“You have to ask your government,” Cano said. “Don’t come here asking me for it.”

Audience members at a club in Mexico City where musicians performed narcocorridos, a genre many states are trying to outlaw.

But eventually he acquiesced, playing a song called “Pacas de Billete,” or “stacks of cash,” which alludes to “El Chapo,” the Sinaloa drug cartel kingpin Joaquín Guzmán. After the event’s organizers cut the sound, Cano’s team activated their own audio system. Eventually, though, the lights were turned out and the artist left the stage and headed directly to the airport. Local authorities have not pressed charges against him.

A few years ago, Cano was slapped with a $50,000 fine for performing narcocorridos in Chihuahua, one of the first states to enact a ban.

Los Alegres del Barranco, the band that flashed a picture of El Mencho in Michoacan, has tried to skirt the laws in recent days with karaoke events in which they play the music but project lyrics for the audience to sing.

For many stars, the bigger threat may be organized crime itself. Drug traffickers often pay to be featured in songs — Peso Pluma has acknowledged taking money from them — and dozens of the genre’s stars have been killed over the years, sometimes by rivals of the hit men and drug dealers they’ve portrayed. Peso Pluma canceled an appearance in Tijuana last year after he received death threats.

Those who support the bans say they are necessary to keep the next generation of young people from romanticizing violence, and to honor those who have lost loved ones to bloodshed.

“Will we tell the victims and their families that it is better to respect the freedom of expression of those who advocate violence than to take measures to safeguard the lives of Mexicans?” columnist Mauricio Farah Gebara wrote in Milenio newspaper.

But for the genre’s devotees, the bans smack of classism.

A musician plays the double bass.

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1. An audience member records the musicians play. 2. An audience member wears a diamond chain bracelet.

It’s a double standard, said a musician named Rosul, who often performs narcocorridos and who attended the lively party in Mexico City last week.

“Netflix can release a series about drug traffickers and win awards and get applause,” she said. “But if somebody from the ‘hood sings about the same thing, it’s an apology for violence?”

Banning the genre, she said, is a losing battle. Young people, after all, hate being told what to do.

“This only makes it more appealing,” she said. “This will only make us stronger.”

Times special correspondent Cecilia Sánchez Vidal contributed to this report.