First ‘narcocorrido’ drug ballads about ‘El Chapo’s’ escape hit the internet

It has taken less than a week for the first narcocorridos, or drug-ballads, celebrating the spectacular prison escape of notorious narcotics kingpin Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán Lorea to appear on YouTube.

The first songs began springing up on Sunday, the day after El Chapo fled his cell through a 1,500-meter tunnel dug underneath the maximum security El Altiplano penitentiary where he was presumably held under heavy guard.

The first drug ballad about El Chapo’s escape has had more than 200,000 hits on YouTube

Narcocorridos are lively folk tunes that glorify the lives and exploits of Mexico’s most famous drug traffickers. Originating in the 1970s in the country’s northern states, the ballads have become popular on both sides of the Mexican-US border.

At the height of the explosive war launched against the cartels by President Felipe Calderón’s administration, they were banned from being played in some Mexican states.

Miguel Gastelum, who is from Sinaloa – the same state where El Chapo was born – was one of the first to upload a video he produced at his restaurant in California that lauds the daring escape by El Chapo, who in the past has evaded his captors by fleeing from different safehouses through underground passageways.

“Now that really is mocking the Mexican government, because through another tunnel he escaped from El Altiplano,” Gastelum sings.

“And now they are moving to bring in the American government. Mr Guzman Loera will for all time be the most powerful drug lord who mocked the government.”

So far, the video has had more than 200,000 hits on YouTube.

Video: Miguel Gastelum sings his new El Chapo drug ballad (in Spanish)

The first narcocorridos were made famous by the group Los Tigres del Norte, who have won numerous Latin Grammy Awards in the United States.

“Only God knows where El Chapo Guzman is, whether you are in Sinaloa, or on the border, whether you crossed it by plane or hopped over land, or whether you are in the mountains of Badiraguato, the land where you were born, and where your child will die and never see again the light of day,” go the lyrics of another ballad.

With 32,000 residents, Bardiraguato is the poor rural town in Sinaloa where El Chapo was born. Back in his home state, he is seen as a hero and “saint” by many – a kind of Robin Hood figure who, much like the late Medellín cartel boss Pablo Escobar, has helped out the poverty-stricken.

Video: A song by David Orozco celebrating El Chapo’s escape (in Spanish).

More than a man, El Chapo is a myth. And where it circulates the most is in Culiacán, the capital of Sinaloa. On the night of his escape, it was reported that his sons and their bodyguards got drunk to celebrate. “Iván, Alfredo, Mini Lic were all there...,” Culiacán residents said later. Iván and Alfredo are Guzmán’s sons while Mini Lic, a friend of theirs, is the son of Dámso López Núñez, a Sinaloa cartel colonel also known as “the lawyer.”

Some believe that El Chapo is hiding out somewhere in Sinaloa’s rugged mountain range, which can be reached in about 90 minutes by car from the state capital.

“The first thing he needs to do is go see the lady,” said one resident. That lady is his elderly mother, Consuelo, who lives in a rural mountain home built by her son fitted with satellite dishes so she can spend her time watching her favorite TV programs.

In Culiacán, a bust of Guzmán has been placed between the statues of Jesus and Mary inside the Jesús Malverde Church. Devotees come and pray before the effigy of El Chapo: the man who started his criminal career by hijacking trucks and taking from the rich to give to the poor, according to the legend surrounding him. It’s a legend his latest great escape is clearly fueling.

English version by Martin Delfin.