Should Narcocorridos Be Banned? | Billboard News
Written by djfrosty on April 23, 2025
Luis R Conriquez has recently faced public backlash for not performing his narcocorridos at his concert due to a ban by Texcoco, and we’re taking a deeper dive into the genre’s controversial history. Keep watching to learn more about the debate on the genre.
Do you think narcocorridos should be banned? Let us know in the comments below.
Narrator:
Eight years after being banned from performing in the U.S. due to accusations by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control for money laundering in 2017, Julión Álvarez — “The Box Office King” — took to SoFi Stadium for a sold-out night of Mexican music, including corridos, a genre that’s currently the subject of a whole lot of controversy, with stars like Natanael Cano and now Luis R Conriquez, who was recently prohibited from performing “narcocorridos” during a set in Mexico.
“They said that if I sang a corrido, they would cut off the sound,” Conriquez told Billboard Latin’s Leila Cobo. The fans booed and threw things on stage, but Luis had his support from the music community backing him up, like Peso Pluma and Alejandro Fernández, who’s not even in the genre, reaching out, saying, “Keep your head up, man, hang in there.” Conriquez was just following the rules and regulations established by Texcoco, a Mexican municipality that, since April 9, prohibited “expressions that glorify violence” following the implementation of a law targeting mass events.
But corridos are nothing new. The style dates back to the Mexican revolution in the early 20th century. Today, in 2025, narcocorridos, which specifically talk about the exploits of drug dealers, are getting pushback. And when Billboard asked the president of Mexico if narcocorridos should be banned on a national level, she had this to say…
Keep watching for more.