MEXICO CITY (AP) — At a Mexican military base, Captain Eduardo Barrón picks up not a rifle but a microphone. Swaying boot-to-boot, he belts out a song as the sounds of trumpets and accordions roar from a band of a dozen camouflage-clad soldiers.
The rhythmic style — known as a corrido — is recognizable to just about every soul in the Latin American nation of 130 million. But Barrón’s lyrics diverge sharply from those blaring on speakers across Mexico.
“I still remember the day I joined the military,” he crooned. “This is a dream my soul longed for, and if I were to live another life, I’d become a soldier again.”
Barrón, who performs under the name “Eddy Barrón,” began releasing music videos and songs on Spotify last year in coordination with the Mexican military. His lyrics extol the army’s virtues, celebrate proud parents and honor the fallen.
They stand in stark contrast to the controversial narco corridos, a subgenre that has sparked controversy as famed artists pay homage to cartel bosses, portraying them as rebels going against the system.
Faced with the challenge of addressing a musical style that depicts cartel violence, local governments across Mexico have increasingly banned performances and pursued criminal investigations of bands and musicians. Mexico’s president even vowed to reduce the popularity of narco corridos while promoting other, less violent musical styles.
But Barrón, 33, is taking a different approach. Instead of censorship, he wants to build upon the momentum with his own military corridos, an effort to both infuse the genre with more socially acceptable lyrics and recruit young people to the military.
“Narco life is in style and they make it sound really pretty … but the reality is different,” he said. “We’re playing our part to invite young people to join this movement of positive music.”
A vow to change Mexican music
Barron’s military ballads are part of a wider government push spearheaded by Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, who has proposed that the government promote corridos about “love, falling out of love and peace.”
She even announced a government-sponsored Mexican music competition in the northern state of Durango showcasing music that avoids “glorifying violence, drugs and discrimination against women.”
“It will completely change Mexican music,” she said.
But in a subculture long defined by resistance and putting words to the harsh realities facing the poor, the government’s initiatives around the genre have been met with skepticism about official attempts to promote family-friendly narratives.
“I don’t think using corridos as a way to incorporate other kinds of narratives, is a bad idea,” said José Manuel Valenzuela, a Tijuana sociologist who studies the genre. “There are a lot of songs that sing of peace and love. It’s just that those aren’t the ones that are turning out to be hits … because we’re living in a moment of aggrieved youth.”
Singing through social issues
Corridos were born in the 19th century, their classical band instruments and the accordion rooted in German and Polish migration to Mexico. At a time of widespread illiteracy, they were used widely to pass on oral histories.
The ballads took off during the Mexican revolution, when they were used to share stories of war heroes and glory from the conflict.
That is why Barrón says he didn’t invent military corridos, but that he’s simply bringing them back.
“Corridos come from the revolution, and we’re doing the same thing as those soldiers and revolutionaries, albeit in a different age, but the result is the same,” he said.
The genre evolved over generations, from singing about smuggling tequila during the 1920’s Prohibition era in corridos tequileros to grappling with the rising wave of cartel violence in Mexico with narco corridos.
“All the big social issues are told through corridos,” Valenzuela said. “It’s a metaphor to speak about what we’ve been living through.”
Weapons and barbed wire as inspiration
Barrón said he would play guitar with his father’s Mexican regional music band as a teenager, and write his own music. He would bring his guitar to play on deployments after he joined the army at 20.
In 2021, he said he began writing his own songs about his time in the military and singing with a military FX Band, named after the type of gun the military uses. But the music never went public.
Around 2023, the genre exploded when artists like Peso Pluma, Fuerza Regida and Natanael Cano began to mix the classic style with trap music in what are known as corridos tumbados. That same year, Peso Pluma bested Taylor Swift as the most streamed artist on YouTube.
A year later, the Mexican army decided to post Barrón’s music under his artistic name.
The music videos, which have clocked tens of thousands of views on YouTube alone, are layered with images of heavy duty weapons, the Mexican flag, barbed wire and Barrón belting out in camouflage and infrared goggles pulled above his military helmet.
Originally intended to entertain troops and boost military recruitment among young Mexicans, Barrón’s songs took on a different meaning amidst the renewed controversy that has come with the corridos boom.
The musical style has long been criticized for romanticizing cartel violence, but has hit an inflection point in recent years.
Mexican states have implemented performance bans, and prominent artists have received death threats, often claiming to be from rival cartels whose leaders are glorified in their music. And musicians have been forced to cancel shows due to concerns about potential violence.
The controversy intensified last week, after the face of top cartel boss Nemesio Rubén “El Mencho” Oseguera was projected onto a large screen behind the band Los Alegres del Barranco at a music festival in the northern state of Jalisco. The incident, occurring shortly after Oseguera’s cartel was linked to a ranch under investigation as a training camp and body disposal site in Jalisco, sent shockwaves across Mexico.
The performance was met with a cascade of criticisms. Two Mexican states announced criminal investigations, concerts were cancelled and the Trump administration revoked the U.S. visas of band members.
It also marked a hardening in tone by Sheinbaum, who called for an investigation into the concert, adding: “You can’t justify violence or criminal groups.”
Barrón, who opposes a ban on corridos, believes the solution is to continue to sing cloaked in camouflage with the hopes of reclaiming the Mexican music from his childhood from the negative stereotypes that have grown to define it.
He said the army is already planning to release new songs in the coming months.
“Sadly, we’ve been stuck with this label of corridos as negative music,” he said. “A better approach is to reclaim the genre and take a different path to shift the conversation.”
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