Los Tucanes de Tijuana: Banned in their namesake border city

It's like the Beatles being banned from returning to Liverpool, the Red Hot Chili Peppers being yanked from stages in Los Angeles, or Jay-Z's music stopped in a source of his inspiration, New York. Since last November, Los Tucanes de Tijuana, one of the most recognizable bands in the Mexican norteño regional genre, are banned from playing in their hometown and namesake, the border city of Tijuana.

The ban is a result of a 2008 concert in which the band's lead singer sent his regards from the stage to the city's most notorious and wanted men, "El Teo and his compadre, El Muletas." The city's get-tough police chief, Julian Leyzaola, was outraged.

Leyzaola pulled the plug on shows by Los Tucanes as they prepared to perform at the city's storied Agua Caliente racetrack in November. Leyzaola said the band's polka-driven narcocorrido songs glorify drug lords and their exploits and are therefore inappropriate to play in a city that has suffered soaring drug-related violence in recent years. The band, with millions of record sales and a fan base as broad as the international border, hasn't been allowed to play in Tijuana since.

In an interview with Richard Marosi of The Times as they prepared for a show in San Diego (as close to Tijuana as they can currently get), Los Tucanes said they don't intend to glorify narco bosses but instead merely write songs about the realities around them.

"I'm not justifying them, or approving of what they do," singer Mario Quintero told Marosi. "The señor [Leyzaola] shouldn't fault us for the corridos as if we're responsible for the killing of his police."

Authorities in Mexico widely disapprove of norteño bands that sing about the drug trade, banning their songs from radio airwaves and even threatening jail time for narcocorrido producers (link in Spanish). The effort is especially vigilant in Tijuana, as Marosi reported in a story in 2008.

Last year, another iconic norteño band, Los Tigres del Norte, was banned from performing a popular song titled "La Granja" at an awards ceremony in Mexico City. The song's allegorical lyrics are critical of the government's strategy against the drug cartels. Los Tigres del Norte pulled out of the show, inevitably boosting the song's profile among fans.

Narcocorrido singers walk a fine line between merely commenting on the larger-than-life figures in Mexico's drug war and singing their praises -- sometimes at their own risk. Several norteño performers have been hunted down and killed, such as Valentin Elizalde and, in June, Sergio Vega. Some of the most well-known narcocorridos describe news events in coded details, such as the song Los Tucanes de Tijuana released about Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, Mexico's most wanted man.

Quintero said the shout-out by Los Tucanes to the then-at-large drug bosses (both El Teo and El Muletas have since been captured) was not an optional thing. He told The Times that someone passed him a note requesting the kingpins be greeted from the stage.

"If they want a greeting and you don't honor it, they can hold it against you," Quintero said. "You know how I defend myself? By being agreeable."

With hits such as "La Chona" and "El Centenario," Los Tucanes de Tijuana are such icons in pop culture that they've even played at the most hallowed site in Mexico, the Zocalo square in Mexico City. Check out this YouTube video of the band performing the romantic "Mundo de Amor" before thousands on the plaza. Here's another Zocalo performance, the song "Los Helados."

After the ban, the band posted a public statement on their MySpace decrying the police chief's decision as censorship: "In general narcocorridos, not only ours but those of all groups who interpret them, reflect a reality in which we have NO participation. We don't share in it nor defend it. They are about facts in public knowledge, involving news and persons that are a part of everyday reality."

-- Daniel Hernandez in Mexico City

Photo: Los Tucanes de Tijuana during a recent concert in San Diego. Credit: Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Pedro]

I don't find anything wrong with anybody singing the reality of our city. It is true that Los Tucanes have corridos that tell facts that makes you believe he knows druglords, hitman, and people afiliated with the drug culture, but lets remember that Mario the band leader is from Sinaloa the state were the biggest names of druglords are from, such as american most wanted Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, El MZ(El Mayo), Javier Torres(JT) and others, also the fact that the band was made in Tijuana were the Tijuana cartel was lead by The Arellano Felix who happen to be from Sinaloa as well. If you have lived in Mexico in a rural area and town in la sierra, you'll find out that it easy to know people like this. Is like being in school you know your classmates and other people in your school, but you don't know what they are going to be when they grow up, but by them you migth have developed a good frienship or who know they may be your cousin or some how related to you. This is what's happening in Mexico. Just do research Chalino Sanchez wrote so many songs to people he met from his State including one to Javier Torres Felix before he was capture and when he was still on the good side as a rural police chief.

In my opinion there is nothing wrong with corridos. The Mexican Goverment just do things like this just to try to cover a big hole with a single finger, but deep inside they know they are to weak to control this war. Lets face it, this is the beggining of the second Mexican Revolution. The goverment have lost control of authority and the trust of the people. People are tire of corruption in Mexico and military abuse to the people. With so much agriculture land and hardworkers why is the people still suffering of unemployment and living in tird worl countries condition. For a lot of people their best option is to grow drugs for people like el Mayo and el Chapo, It's pay better by americans than other Mexican goods.

[Abel]

No different than what American Rappers do.

[Invitado]

The problem whit this artists is because their music glorify the cartel people and it is sending a bad message to the young people in Mexico. And the American people are not pulling the trigger of the gun. The violence in Mexico is because everybody wants more power or more money. I believe the should make drugs legal and put tax on it. Increase the penalties of small crimes like theft and other few things to make people work their drugs.

[Socorro Varela]

Mexico's artists need to portray the drug trade for what it really is...death.

America needs to pitch in and begin to hold the millions of American users as "responsible" for the death they cause.

[John]

It's the height of hypocrisy when these musicians claim they are "only documenting the realities around them." Spousal abuse, pedophilia, obesity, poverty, legalized gay marriage, lack of decent public education are all also realities in Mexico's headlines today - but I don't hear the Tucanes writing songs about these issues. They do glorify narco-gangsters in the same way that some rappers glorify drug dealers, ho's and pimps in urban music. Why? Because these songs pander to base instincts, offer escapist hyperbole to disenfranchised, dead-end youth, and make money. Not all rappers or norteno artists glorify criminals. The ones who do should be made to donate their proceeds to rehabilitation facilities and jails to help the victims of this trade.

[Mr Picachoo]

To TEE, I dont care for Norteño or Narco music, but I also have a strong dislike to the beatles....I have a wager at work, on who is going to die next when it comes to the beatles.... wanna get in on it?

[zenun]

I think they were simply making a comparison of which you misinterpreted. What a yahoooo! Yea you patricia

[huh?]

@ Tee, they did not compare this group to the beatles they compared the banning of them from tj would be like banning the beatles from liverpool. read the article as it is written, not what you thought it said.

[maandrews]

That the LAT prints and thinks this matters this shows with out a doubt the readership it aspires to cultivate! Its NO surprise in the Outlaw Sanctuary City of once great los angeles now a bankrupt in decline dystopia!

[Jim]

I have to agree. It's quite a stretch comparing these guys to The Beatles. Also, for them to say that they're not glorifying drug dealers is nothing but a lie. They know exactly what they're doing: creating an aura of legend and myth around these people who are responsible for the deaths of so many innocents. These artists are cowards.

[Emile Zola]

And who is responsible for the state of Mexico today? The Mexico of yesteryear. When money, dirty money, comes into a society, they bow out to the carteles, because, supposedly, they bring jobs and prosperity, without realizing that they are digging up a tomb for the the Mexico of today. Drug trafficking is like a cancer that when it starts, it's easy to control, destroy, but when it metastasis it becomes impossible to defeat. Better fasten the seat belts, because it's going to get worse, before, if ever, it gets any better. When society refused to confront the problem or decided to look the other way, now it's going to be like the bed that you prepared to lay on, or like the sign that appeared in a china shop: U breakee, U payee.

[Sean Socco]

I remember when Suicidal Tendencies was banned in L.A. These things happen here, too.

[Patricia]

Stop the insanity. Stop the war.

[Tee]

What the . . . ???

Comparing these YAHOOS to the Beatles!
Are you freakin' kidding me???
What an insult!

And if Tijuana don't want 'em, tell them to travel farther south.

Chances are, you won't even post this!