El Makabelico, the rapper accused by US of ties to Cartel del Noreste: ‘I grab the mic and the devil gets inside me’

Hooded, wearing military tactical gear, standing in front of a Tesla Cybertruck — valued at over two million pesos — sporting a diamond necklace around his neck and accompanied by mariachis dressed in white who back his rhymes. This is how El Makabelico appears in his latest music video for his song La sombra. It’s one of the last unofficial images available on YouTube of the rapper, since his channel, with over two million followers, was suspended he was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department, which accuses him of having ties to the Cártel del Noreste (CDN).

Last Wednesday, the Trump administration, in its latest move in the war against drug trafficking, announced it was freezing of assets and properties in the United States belonging to Abdón Federico Rodríguez García, alias Cucho, the second-in-command of the CDN, along with two high-ranking members, Antonio Romero Sánchez and Franky Esqueda. The sanctions also included rapper Ricardo Hernández Medrano, better known by his stage names El Makabelico or Comando Exclusivo, who is accused of money laundering for the criminal group.

Since that day, his social media accounts — except for his profile on X — and platforms where his music was available, such as Spotify, where he had over 5 million monthly listeners, have been shut down. “Hernández Medrano is an associate of CDN and a notorious narco-rapper. Hernandez’s concerts and events are used to launder money on behalf of the organization, with 50%of his royalties from streaming platforms going directly to the group,” stated the press release from the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control.

Hernández, 34, has not responded to the accusations against him. The balaclava, tactical military glasses, or skull mask he often wears in his videos are just part of his persona, he explained during a 2019 interview on the podcast Puro Pa’delante. Unlike his fluent rap verses that glorify the CDN, its bosses, hitmen, and exploits, in conversation on the podcast he comes across as somewhat introverted.

“Makabelico is the one who raps, the one who swears, the bellicose one, the rude one, like my alter ego. I prefer to be behind a mask so I’m more comfortable expressing myself strongly. Ricardo is the one who goes to the store like any other person,” he explained in the podcast.

Requests from organized crime

His interest in music began at age 14, influenced by the rap and hip hop playing at the time, while he lived between Texas and Tamaulipas. His first rhymes came from joking around with his high school friends, “funny stuff” meant to make them laugh. Many of them said, “Yeah, make it.” At 22, in 2013, he began recording himself in his studio and creative space, which he named Comando Exclusivo. His first stage name was Jr. El Makabro, a pseudonym with which he composed his first songs — a romantic reggaeton called Te vas, as well as three commercial tracks for Frutería Estrada in Nuevo Laredo, where he was born.

Over the next three years, he began receiving requests from organized crime to compose commissioned songs. He says much of the inspiration for his lyrics came from what was happening in his city, caught in a brutal war between the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas — who later became the CDN — as well as his interest in horror. “Then they started asking me for strong, warlike songs. That’s when I changed my name from Makabro to Makabelico,” he recounts on the podcast. “Strong songs,” he affirms, like Chiquitín v3 — one of his favorites — in which he openly declares his allegiance: “My cartel is respected, pure coca delta nectar. I’m not above anyone, kids don’t exaggerate it. I’d give my life for my Cartel del Noreste.”

In 2016, in a post on his Facebook page, he officially changed his name to El Makabelico, the “most warlike rapper.” In the following years, he stayed within the underground scene until he caught the attention of Ángel del Villar, owner of the Del Records label, in 2019, who offered him a contract. “I like his lyrics, his personality, his humility. I see him in the big leagues, competing with the biggest names, he’s going to rise quickly,” said the businessman on the same podcast. In March, Del Villar was found guilty in the U.S. of doing business with drug traffickers.

From narcocorridos to “dedications”

Artists like Cano y Blunt, Lirik Dog, from Reynosa, as well as Big Los from Matamoros, are considered the pioneers of narco rap in Mexico. They laid the foundation for this hip-hop subgenre more than a decade after the war on drugs began during Felipe Calderón’s administration. The cartels in Tamaulipas, which was a war zone, started seeking out artists to make the so-called “dedications” for them.

Enrique Flores, in his book Rimas malandras: del narcocorrido al narco rap (in English, Street Rhymes: From Narcocorrido to Narco Rap), explains that this subgenre took hold in these border cities due to a generational shift and the increasing presence of younger people in the drug armies. The new hitmen and bosses moved away from the narcocorrido and sought immortality through rap verses.

These compositions, made on request and approved by the bosses or their intermediaries, idealize the life of the narco, murders of rivals, and the camaraderie of armed struggle against the Mexican Army. “If they think they did something important, they want to leave a testimony and for that, they look for a rapper to do it. It’s a game of public relations and perception. Like a very macabre chess game where these narco rappers are messengers,” explained journalist Feli Dávalos in a documentary.

It is a “dangerous genre,” say various specialists. Makabelico agrees, as he revealed in a 2019 interview. “It’s hard music, what I do doesn’t appeal to everyone. Not everyone listens to that. Normally, it’s hitmen who come after me for the songs. Those are the warlike songs, the ones I like. They’re about what’s happening [in Tamaulipas] and it’s not on TV. I grab the microphone and the devil gets inside me,” he stated.

Another favorite composition he mentioned in that same conversation is El patrón del mal (The Boss of Evil). The song, released in 2018 and which managed to bypass Spotify’s filters, is an ode to the CDN, its disgraced former leaders Miguel Ángel and Óscar Omar Treviño Morales — known as Z-40 and Z-42 respectively — who face legal proceedings in the United States for organized crime charges. In it, he even takes a jab at Donald Trump: “Here you run into war, I make the earth tremble. If that asshole puts up a wall, I’ll knock it down.”

As if anticipating what was coming, by 2019 Makabelico distanced himself from any ties to the cartel. Like many other singers of the subgenre, he said: “I only sing what they tell me. I can’t say no either, I can’t refuse. I live here and can’t take any risks.”

Since then, according to the rapper, fear has gripped his family. “Yes, they worry a lot, I can tell. Maybe they don’t tell me, but they do worry, they’re afraid something might happen to me,” Ricardo Hernández reflected during that interview, without his mask or gimmicks. However, Makabelico’s paraphernalia, his persona, tries to convince him that “narco-rap is music, nothing more, like any other genre.”

The singer’s final verse has yet to be written, despite the uncertainty surrounding his career now that he’s on the United States’ blacklist.

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