Regional Goes Global, Part 3: How a magical Mexican town keeps banda tradition alive
FELIX CONTRERAS, HOST:
You've heard this voice before.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ELLA BAILA SOLA")
PESO PLUMA: (Singing) No soy un vato que tiene varo pero hablando del corazón, te cumplo todo.
CONTRERAS: But since we've heard it in the first episode of our series Regional Goes Global, Peso Pluma has been crowned one of the top five most streamed artists of 2023 on Spotify, keeping company with pop icons Taylor Swift and Harry Styles, among others.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SHAKE IT OFF")
TAYLOR SWIFT: (Singing) I stay out too late.
CONTRERAS: That's right. Billions of streams and an untold number of people around the world connected through música Mexicana.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ANAMARIA SAYRE, HOST:
As we traveled around the U.S. in the first two episodes, we discovered that a lot of the explosion of this music is largely because of the ways that Mexican American kids are streaming, creating and seeing themselves in this music, connecting not only with each other but with their own identities.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SAYRE: Remember Diana (ph) talking about her cousin in Nashville?
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
DIANA: I don't think she's ever been to Mexico, and she's very proud of being Mexican. The music does not just impact what she listens to on the daily, but also, like, how she dresses or, like, how she talks, or, like, her identity of being Mexican. Like, yeah, I love it.
SAYRE: Or Armando Martinez of Yahritza y Su Esencia in Yakima.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
ARMANDO MARTINEZ: I was raised by Mexican parents that gave me that Mexican feeling, but I was raised in the U.S. I don't know. It's something that you have to experience. Like, you can't just tell somebody how it feels.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
CONTRERAS: The music has also connected fans and musicians on this side of the border to the music's origins.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST: (Singing) Que culpa tengo.
CONTRERAS: So in this episode of this series, we traveled to a small town in the Mexican state of Sinaloa to see where those connections are born.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Adelante bienvenidos. Bienvenidos.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Gracias.
SAYRE: Ay wow.
To an actual Pueblo Mágico where the banda sinaloense roots of Peso Pluma and others are a living and breathing tradition taught in schools, shared in stories, preserved and proliferated for future generations. Here, this music isn't a source for discovering identity; it is identity.
MIRTHA VÁZQUEZ: Porque si no conoces el pueblo donde vives, no vas a ser nadie.
CONTRERAS: But what happens when the tradition leaves the pueblo?
VICTOR RUBIO: La música tradicional es tan fuerte en ganarse los corazones de la gente.
CONTRERAS: I'm Felix Contreras.
SAYRE: I'm Anamaria Sayre.
CONTRERAS: And you're listening to ALT.LATINO from NPR Music.
SAYRE: Let the chisme begin.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
CONTRERAS: Ana, as we were putting this series together, I was excited to know that we were going to Sinaloa, not just because banda sinaloense is such a big part of the current moment with regional music, but also because of the way it reflects a little bit of the history of Mexico.
SAYRE: And as we've seen so far in our series, traditions are not just a thing of the past. They continue to define Mexican musicians and communities today. We heard it in the crowd at the Peso Pluma concert in Nashville and in the love of Mexico that Yahritza Martinez and her brothers have when they make music as Yahritza y Su Esencia. You know, this current regional Mexican moment is not the first time banda sinaloense has had an audience outside of Mexico.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LA NOCHE QUE MURIÓ CHICAGO")
BANDA TORO: (Singing) Mi madre oí llorar, la noche en que Chicago se murió.
CONTRERAS: In the 1990s, young Mexican immigrants developed a style of dancing to banda music, and they called it quebradita. Mostly in the Southwest, young people created quebradita dance clubs and created a whole social movement around the style. But it was more than just a fad because by reaching back to the upbeat brass sounds of banda, young people back then were creating another stop on the historical arc of banda that extends from the middle of the 19th century to right now.
(SOUNDBITE OF BANDA EL RECODO'S "EL SAUCE Y LA PALMA")
SAYRE: The first banda orchestras developed in Central and Southern Mexico in the mid-1800s, and they were informal collections of musicians who were imitating the sounds of the polished brass instruments and the marches of military bands. All the tubas and brass you hear nowadays comes from those early ensembles, and eventually, Sinaloa became so associated with the development of this music that the music is still referred to as banda sinaloense, or band music from Sinaloa. And during our reporting, all roads kept leading to a small town just two hours from the capital city, Culiacán - Mocorito, a picturesque pueblito that almost feels like a factory for talented musicians and boasts of being the hometown of the iconic band Los Tigres del Norte, a place where banda lives, and tradition never dies.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SAYRE: The road to Mocorito from Culiacán was surrounded by rolling green hills on both sides, far from the desert landscape I'd envisioned. Almost untouched, it was easy to imagine that banda tubas and trumpets were passed down from these very same hills. We arrive with the sun setting over miles of fields at our backs. Then, from behind an arch that proudly reads Mocorito Pueblo Mágico emerges the pueblo with twinkly lights adorning the antique town square and colorful historic buildings - picture perfect, standing still in time.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Adelante bienvenidos. Bienvenidos.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Gracias.
SAYRE: Ay wow.
CONTRERAS: Our first stop is the Casa de Cultura Dr. Enrique González Martínez, a cultural center that sits in the shadow of a historic church which dates back to 1594. Because of this history and the music made here, in 2015, the Mexican government designated Mocorito as a Pueblo Mágico, a destination that is part of a national program to promote the country's cultural heritage.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Buenas tardes, señorita.
SAYRE: Buenas tardes.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: ¿Estará en su oficina?
CONTRERAS: Si acá esta, nos está esperando ya.
SAYRE: We were greeted by some municipality workers. They gave us a brief tour around the 19th century building, which features an elaborate mural depicting the history of the town, including its musical heritage.
VÁZQUEZ: Hay como un grupo, creo que probablemente Los Tigres del Norte.
SAYRE: Mirtha Vázquez manages the town's social communications as un Pueblo Mágico, and of course, she's also a musician. Her roots in Mocorito are deep, and for her, it's not just a job; it's a part of her identity.
VÁZQUEZ: Entonces cuando yo ya estaba más grande, y yo quería ir a las fiestas habían…
SAYRE: She told us a story about wanting to go to the club as a young person, but her mom told her she had to go to the town dance first. They would go back and forth arguing, but her mom would say, you have to go.
VÁZQUEZ: Primero el pueblo, porque si no conoces el pueblo donde vives no vas a ser nadie.
SAYRE: Because if you don't know the town where you live, you're nobody.
VÁZQUEZ: Porque vas comprendiendo y valorando más el tiempo, el lugar, la gente. En primer lugar porque todos provenimos de…
SAYRE: Mirtha explains that you understand and value time more. The pueblo is built from generations of parents, grandparents who did something for Mocorito, too. She says that's why they're called to this love, this work. All of the people here helped raise up this very same structure we're standing in.
VÁZQUEZ: Las mismas que pudieron haber participado en levantar la parroquia.
SAYRE: I asked Mirtha a question she tells us she always gets asked.
VÁZQUEZ: Y yo esa pregunta les hago cada vez en esa entrevista, que hay? Que tiene Mocorito?
SAYRE: What does Mocorito have? What's special about it?
VÁZQUEZ: Y la coincidencia es esa, Mocorito tiene magia.
SAYRE: Mocorito has magic, she explains. That magic has been preserved in the corners, in the alleys, in the streets, in those little old love lights of the past.
VÁZQUEZ: Todavía se puede percibir ese amor.
SAYRE: You can still perceive that love the people of this small town have lived. But we wanted to understand, with the rise of corridos tumbados, the music moving elsewhere, how does that impact the land the music comes from?
VÁZQUEZ: No se pierda esa magia, y nos han legado grandes canciones…
SAYRE: Mirtha assures us the people here have worked hard to maintain the magic. Great music has been made in the process. The magic of Mocorito can be seen in the melodies. They make them cry.
VÁZQUEZ: Hasta llorar.
SAYRE: ...Laugh and cry.
VÁZQUEZ: Reir y llorar.
SAYRE: And Mocorito continues to be a very music-loving land. Mirtha explains that people from here love it so much that people come from all over just to understand why they love it so much.
VÁZQUEZ: La gama de personalidades que vienen a ver por que amamos tanto Mocorito, y está en parte eso, la música es arte y Mocorito es arte.
SAYRE: And she says part of that is that music is art, and Mocorito is art. There was one more bit of history they taught us before we left. There are artists who have taken their musical training and left, but there are those who have stayed, preserving the music for national and international audiences.
VÁZQUEZ: Hay dinastía de Los Hermanos Rubio, que son los músicos más reconocidos porque de ahí han surgido las generaciones…
SAYRE: One of the most important has been Los Hermanos Rubio's.
(SOUNDBITE OF TIM DEVINE AND FRANCISCA GONZALES SONG, "ASI ES MI TIERRA CALIENTE")
CONTRERAS: Muy niñitos desde que tocan.
SAYRE: Ay si.
CONTRERAS: Es los cite a todos y muchos no se dan cuenta. Dónde va? dónde va? Ya sabes que se suspendió verdad? Se suspendió lo que íbamos a hacer hoy, el ensayo. Si por, el aviso que hubo. El toca trompeta, ahí va su trompetita.
SAYRE: ¿Ah si? Y tiene su trompeta.
CONTRERAS: Si tiene su trompeta.
SAYRE: En tu bici.
Victor Rubio is a direct descendant of this famous dynasty. And he's well-known in the streets of Mocorito. He's the music teacher at one of the middle schools in the small town. And while people here call him El Profe, he is not just any music teacher. As a member of a family that has a deep connection to banda sinaloense that goes back over a hundred years, his call to continue the banda tradition runs deep.
(SOUNDBITE OF BANDA HNOS. RUBIO DE MOCORITO'S "LA INDIA BONITA")
CONTRERAS: He was a working musician and a member of the family band Los Hermanos Rubio De Mocorito, one of the more high-profile bandas in a town known for banda bands. In 1990, he was asked by the governor of Sinaloa to take over teaching music classes at one of the town's middle schools, and since then, generations of the town's budding musicians have learned to read music and continue the Mocorito legacy under his direction.
(SOUNDBITE OF BANDA HNOS. RUBIO DE MOCORITO'S "LA INDIA BONITA")
SAYRE: During a drive to his home for an interview, we saw many of his students walking along the cobblestone streets dressed in their blue and white school uniforms, carrying their band instruments and school books.
(SOUNDBITE OF BANDA HNOS. RUBIO DE MOCORITO'S "LA INDIA BONITA")
RUBIO: Profesor Víctor Rubio le dijeron, me jalan la oreja. Venganse.
(SOUNDBITE OF CAR DOOR SLAMMING)
CONTRERAS: He guides us to his private space, a small room decorated with music memorabilia and a small bar. He starts our conversation by filling in the blanks on the history of banda sinaloense, and he explains how the sound of all those horns got to Mexico from Europe.
RUBIO: Llegan barcos grandísimos, extranjeros, y esos barcos eran Europeos, tanto Alemanes, como Italianos, Ingleses.
CONTRERAS: He says there were ships that used to come into the harbor in Mazatlán back in the last century, just after the Mexican Revolution in 1910, with people from Europe - Germans, Italians, English. He tells a story of two German brothers who set up a store that sold a bunch of things, including musical instruments - clarinets, trumpets, pianos and accordions.
RUBIO: Que la banda de Sinaloa viene de los ancestros de las banda Alemanas.
CONTRERAS: He points out that the banda sinaloense comes from the suffering of a marginalized people who had no way of how to even dance to their own music.
RUBIO: Y hacían sus ahorros, hasta juntar el dinero que les costaba un insturmento.
CONTRERAS: He explains that these early musicians would save their money until they had enough to buy their own instruments.
RUBIO: De manera parafraseada, a oreja, ¿no? Sin maestro.
CONTRERAS: And then after they were done working in the fields...
RUBIO: Y eso lo hacían después de la faena del campo…
CONTRERAS: They left the machetes in their backpacks. They would go home, freshen up and start to play their instruments.
RUBIO: Todos sudados, se echaban un baño y empezaban a tocar su instrumento. ¿Cómo? Pues como Dios les daba a entender.
CONTRERAS: How did they do it? Only God knows, he says.
RUBIO: ¿Verdad? Entonces estalla la revolución Mejicana, y había banda, en ese entonces, bandas militares.
CONTRERAS: He explains that during this time - during the Mexican Revolution - the bands were mainly trained musicians in military bands.
RUBIO: Entonces para poder serenatear una dama…
CONTRERAS: Victor Rubio explains that back in the day, in order to serenade a young woman to try to get her to be your girlfriend, musicians had to find the right music to make her heart beat. A lot of the music came from that feeling - songs like "Vuela Paloma," "The Sentence Of Love."
SAYRE: As with all good Mexican stories, the origin of the Rubio family's long history with the town's cultural legacy started with an abuelita.
RUBIO: Inicia con una buena intención de una abuelita que le gustaba mucho parrandear.
CONTRERAS: This abuelita loved to go to the plaza in the center of Mocorito to hear music and often paid them to hear her favorite songs. Rubio says one day she thought to herself, why am I paying so much money to other people? Why not buy some instruments, then teach my family to play my favorite songs?
SAYRE: An abuela, a little love, maybe even some divine intervention, and from all of that, one of the musical beating hearts of this town was born.
CONTRERAS: We're going to get back to Mocorito right after this break.
SAYRE: And we're back in Sinaloa, Mexico.
SAYRE: While conducting another interview, producer Lilly Quiroz, Felix and I could hear the familiar oompa-oompa of a tuba that sounded close.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Playing tuba).
SAYRE: Running through the streets a few blocks over, we discovered the members of Banda Los Líderes rehearsing in one of the band members' front yards.
CARLOS SARMIENTO FONSECA: (Singing) Que culpa tengo que por tu mala cabeza vas a sufrir. No te detengo si es tu gusto ese camino lo haz de seguir. Tarde o temprano yo te he de ver lamentando tu proceder, ya cuando en vano tu quieras arrepentida retroceder. Yo sufro por tal que sufras y si juego se perder.
CONTRERAS: Ana, I have been playing in bands my whole life, and I have to say that - and over the years, I don't think any of them could rehearse with brass and loud drums without the neighbors complaining. But in Mocorito, the neighbors seemed to embrace it.
FONSECA: Mi nombre es Carlos Sarmiento Fonseca. Soy vocalista de Banda la Líder de aquí de Mocorito.
SAYRE: And of course, Felix, some members of his band were former students of Professor Rubio. He says that Professor Rubio gives the students here their big break - the opportunity to study music, which is a really big source of employment here.
FONSECA: Pasa que el profe Víctor es maestro de una secundaria aquí, y para todos los niños de secundaria es una oportunidad para empezar a estudiar música pues es una fuente de trabajo aquí, hay mucho trabajo en esto, es algo cultural aquí.
SAYRE: Entonces por eso, por esta experiencia con el profesor empezó tu amor por la banda.
FONSECA: Lo que pasa, por la cultura aquí, la banda es lo que mas suena aquí, y por fuente de trabajo. Pues yo creo que todos tenemos un pariente, un primo, un tío, un abuelo, que pues eso se va dejando de generación en generación.
SAYRE: He explains that it's a cultural thing here, passed down from generation to generation.
(APPLAUSE)
CONTRERAS: A day after we met the band rehearsing in the front yard, we decided to go see the source, the space where the magic is made and Professor Rubio breathes life into banda love - the schoolyard.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
CONTRERAS: Professor Rubio was in the middle of all that controlled chaos...
RUBIO: Buenas tardes.
CONTRERAS: ...Giving individual instructions first to the clarinet...
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: (Playing clarinet).
CONTRERAS: ...Then the brass...
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP #1: (Playing brass instruments).
CONTRERAS: ...Then the huge bass drum and loud snare drum.
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP #2: (Playing drums).
CONTRERAS: Parents stood around the schoolyard or watched through the fence, admiring their young musicians. There was a father giving his son instructions on the tuba.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #5: (Playing tuba).
CONTRERAS: One of the band members we met in the front yard walked over to us to say hello. Turns out he's a teacher at the school. And eventually Profe Rubio called the practice session to order.
RUBIO: Empezamos, ya saben que es suavecito, es la flauta dulce en Sol Mayor, la flauta dulce, silencio, ¿que trato les dije que debe tener la flauta dulce?
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #6: Con amabilidad.
RUBIO: Con amabilidad. ¿Verdad? Porque si le damos un viento fuerte se va a iniciar el sonido. Empezamos, uno, dos, tres, cuatro.
CONTRERAS: Watching Profe Rubio work with the young musicians, something he told us earlier stood out.
RUBIO: Una música viene siendo la vacuna…
CONTRERAS: He says the music is like a vaccine - preventive medicine to keep young people off the path of drugs and alcohol and other things he considers morally questionable. That wrong path is a big concern for El Profe and the families of Mocorito and in Sinaloa in general. And here is where we have to address the third rail of Mexican society, the subject that few really want to talk about. But it is a fact of life in Mexico - the drug cartel or narcotraficantes or narcos reach every part of Mexican society, especially in Sinaloa, where the country's largest cartel is based.
The depth of the entanglement of the government and the cartel has led many to describe Sinaloa as a narco state. A recent study published in Science Magazine indicated that the narco industry is the fifth-largest employer in Mexico, just below Walmart and above the country's petroleum industry. And just earlier this year, the man who was once Mexico's highest ranking law enforcement officer was tried and convicted in U.S. federal court of various drug trafficking charges while working for the Sinaloa cartel. In January of this year, 29 people were killed during a shootout between the Mexican government and well-armed cartel gunmen in an attempt to take one of Sinaloa cartel leaders into custody in Culiacán. The military was so overwhelmed by the number of gunmen that the cartel leader was released.
And during our stay in Mocorito, we were told by people who would know that our presence as U.S.-based journalists was known and noted. But we were also told that narcos are invested in making sure that town succeeds as a Pueblo Mágico - as a destination for tourists from Mexico and beyond.
SAYRE: And that makes Mocorito an interesting paradox because many of those associated with illegal activities are also proud of being Sinaloan, which gives them a vested interest in preserving the musical heritage of the region. And with the narcos having such a pervasive influence on the local economy, it's hard not to believe that some of the banda bands in the area have either performed for or have had some kind of association with the cartel. No one will go on the record to actually say that, but consider this. While Mocorito has set aside a newly constructed building for a museum for local heroes Los Tigres del Norte just 35 miles away, the mayor of another small town, Badiraguato, has reportedly proposed opening a museum dedicated to narco trafficking in the region. And that connection between narco culture and music is clearly defined in another Mexican musical export - the narcocorrido.
(SOUNDBITE OF CÓDIGO FN SONG, "SOY EL RATÓN")
SAYRE: Much like gangster rap in this country, narcocorridos are sometimes seen as the cartel's attempt to control their image, twisting the storytelling nature of corridos into a tool for their positive portrayal, despite it being associated with some of the darker, sadder, scarier parts of day-to-day Mexican reality.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SOY EL RATÓN")
CÓDIGO FN: (Singing) Guzmán de apellido es Ovidio, su padre de niño le apodó el Ratón…
SAYRE: Remember that shootout in Culiacán we mentioned? A popular corrido was recorded in which the cartel apologizes to the citizens of Culiacán for the battle.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SOY EL RATÓN")
CÓDIGO FN: (Singing) Hay nos vemos chavalada, la Chapiza sigue al mando.
SAYRE: And to show just how deep the cartel's influence has become, we come back to Peso Pluma.
(SOUNDBITE OF PESO PLUMA SONG, "SIEMPRE PENDIENTES")
SAYRE: He wraps up 2023 as one of the planet's most streamed music stars. Yet also this year, he canceled at least one concert because of death threats from a Mexican cartel allegedly over beef about his lyrics. The vocalist has also come under fire in the past for romanticizing cartel violence in his music and videos, like this song, "Siempre Pendientes."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SIEMPRE PENDIENTES")
PESO PLUMA: (Singing) En una Urus me salgo a pasear. Diez camionetas se miran atrás. Cuido la plaza del señor Guzmán. Y al Piyi traigo de anillo de seguridad.
SAYRE: And he has neither confirmed nor denied a reported relationship with narcos earlier in his career.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOSE E SANCHEZ JR SONG, "GENTE DE RANCHO")
CONTRERAS: So while many cultural observers and plain old music fans have complained about the negative impact narcocorridos have had on Mexican society, others blamed the country's societal changes on fundamental flaws within the basic infrastructure of Mexican society - corruption in the Mexican government, police and judicial system. And narcocorridos exist because of that reality.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOSE E SANCHEZ JR SONG, "GENTE DE RANCHO")
SAYRE: It's so complicated, Felix. But during this whole series, as we talked with people, as we researched, we reported, I started to think that maybe banda sinaloense and other forms of regional music throughout Mexico act as a buffer, or a remedy, or a distraction or maybe even a salvation for Mexican society.
CONTRERAS: And for those on this side of the border, we've seen this series that the music is a way to connect back to Mexico as a point of pride under some very trying times for immigrants from Mexico and Central America here in this country.
SAYRE: Felix, I told you late last night, I think this music, it's for broken people - broken country, broken identity, and yet, within the heartbreak of the music of ourselves, we find acceptance. And maybe, just maybe, we even learn to love again.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOSE E SANCHEZ JR SONG, "GENTE DE RANCHO")
CONTRERAS: You have been listening to Regional Goes Global, a special series by ALT.LATINO from NPR Music. The audio for this episode was edited by Joaquin Cotler with audio engineering help from Josephine Nyounai and production help from Suraya Mohamed.
SAYRE: The editor for the series is Jacob Ganz, and thank you to NPR correspondent Eyder Peralta for his editorial guidance and support.
CONTRERAS: The film producer for this episode was Lilly Quiroz.
SAYRE: Hazel Cills is our podcast editor and digital editor.
CONTRERAS: Grace Chung is our project manager, and Keith Jenkins is the VP of music and visuals for NPR.
SAYRE: I'm Anamaria Sayre.
CONTRERAS: And I'm Felix Contreras.
SAYRE: Thank you so much for listening.
CONTRERAS: We hope you enjoyed our series, Regional Goes Global, and to hear all three episodes, you can go to our website at npr.org/altlatino or wherever you get your podcasts. And let's close out this week with a track from Los Hermanos Rubio De Mocorito called "Mis Referencias."
(SOUNDBITE OF BANDA HERMANOS RUBIO DE MOCORITO'S "MIS REFERENCIAS")
Copyright © 2023 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.