The origin of the Mexican tumbado corridos with which artists such as Bad Bunny, Featherweight or Becky G succeed

It all started about six years ago with the idea of ​​”rapping” to the rhythms of Mexican corridos. Today it is a genre that has entered the Latin American music scene with enormous success.

The horizontal corridors have been installed the top of the world maps. The song “She Dances Alone” reached the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Global 200 this week. And a total of seven songs from the genre are on arrangement.

And in Spotify’s Global Top 50, the theme “A x100to” performed by the Texans of Grupo Frontera and the Puerto Rican Bad Bunny, who is also a lying corrido, took first place.

The Colombian Karol G has her own theme, “200 glasses”on the popularity charts.

It has been a striking success since the reclining corridors they started to be heard in a very local way less than five years ago, especially among Latinos in the southwestern United States and Mexicans in the north of the country.

“The very peculiar border we have with the United States, so culturally rich, is where many genres of music are combined,” Mexican music critic Arturo Saucedo explains to BBC Mundo.

“It is there where one of the first gestures of the reclining gaits takes place, a combination of hip hop with Mexican instruments. The two talk about very similar topics and find a brotherhood,” he adds.

Lyrics of the reclining courses usually deal with themes such as love and loyalty of friends, but also the consumption of resources, excesses, money and power.

Some even portray situations of drug trafficking or violent gang conflict.

It’s similar to what 1980s gangster rap did in the US and narco corridos in Mexico in those years, but now with an urban style that appeals to younger people.

The “rural” music of Mexico

Corridos are an important part of Mexico’s musical history.

The rhythm has its origins in the 19th century, when the polka was brought by Germans and Poles who settled in northern Mexico. It became very popular in ballroom dancing in that region.

During the Mexican Revolution (1910-1917), this musicality was supplemented with lyrics that reviewed the deeds of the heroes of the armed conflict.

“In a country with a high illiteracy rate at the time, the news circulated more through these troubadours playing pieces of music and telling people what happened in certain battles, what happened to certain warlords, what happened to certain characters,” explains Saucedo.

The genre lost popularity over the course of the twentieth century, with the emergence of new styles such as ranchera ballad, the band or tamborazo, the norteño group and the huapangoamong others (all of these rhythms are now known as “Mexican regional”).

While corridos continued to be played in the northern regions of Mexico, where there were no major urban developments, they did not reach Mexico City. That music was “rural” for many.

“Mexico is a country that is too centralized. So if it didn’t happen in the capital, it didn’t happen in the rest of the country,” says Saucedo.

But corridos saw a resurgence in the 1980s with numbers like Chalino Sanchez, Ramon Ayala or Los Tigres del Norteunder different major exponents.

And with the increase in the Mexican population in the US, particularly in border states like Texas or California, the regional Mexican music gained more popularity.

Reclining gaits, however, have broken through musical forms.

Corridors with “flow”

The birth of the lying corridos has several predecessors, young people around 20 years old from northeastern Mexico who no longer dress up as cowboys like the traditional corrido singers, but with the rapper style.

Dan Sánchez, who is considered one of the first to compose this kind of music, explains that he had in mind “put the rap to the guitars” of the hallways which were part of the musical influences he grew up with in the state of Sonora.

Besides listening to the Invasores de Nuevo León, Sergio Vega and Ariel Camacho, he loved the hip hop from the Mexican rapper El Alemán or the American Dr. Dre.

He composed songs like “I am the devil” or “El chamaquito” that were corridors, but “lying down”. The word simply refers to the fact that they are urban.

“It’s street style, but without saying ‘street’, that’s already… [está pasado de moda]”, explained Sánchez in an interview with producer Pepe Garza.

He shared the idea with Nathanael Canoanother young man from Hermosillo who is considered the singer who paved the way for this style when no one knew him: “He’s the tip of the iceberg,” says Saucedo.

But the hallways are They are not just a fusion of two styles of music, but an evolution of that mix.especially with the use of two string instruments (the guitar and the bajo quinto) with two brass instruments (the tuba and the trombone).

This has attracted a young audience that identifies with the Mexican regional, but also tries to distinguish itself from the past.

“In general, one generation doesn’t want to be like another, it doesn’t want to emulate the previous generation,” says Saucedo.

Ariel Camachoanother young man whose career was on the rise until his death at the age of 23, is credited with being the musician who caused the great change in the traditional corridos in terms of their instrumental sounds.

“He comes up with this proposal of three instruments [dos cuerdas y una tuba] and then this changes the way regional Mexican is done,” explains the music critic.

but it is Featherweight who currently stands out as the main exponent of the moment in this style of music.

The 23-year-old has racked up eight songs on Spotify’s Global Top 50 and nine on the Billboard Global 200 chart in recent weeks.

The songs are sung in duet with other exponents of the reclining gaits, such as Natanael Cano or Junior H or Gabito Ballesterosbut he has also collaborated with artists from other genres, such as Yng Lvcas or Becky G.

With the latter he performed at Coachella, one of the most important festivals in the US.

On the other hand, the world star of reggaeton and Latin trap, Bad rabbithas ventured into the genre by collaborating with Grupo Frontera on the song “Un x100to”, which has become remarkably popular with the public.

This remarkable increase in the number of reclining courses seems to be a reminder of the rapid growth of reggaeton and later trap in recent years.

“If we think that it emerged in 2015 or 2016 and starts showing its first sparks until 2020, then we are talking about a relatively young genre. But we still don’t have the biggest exponent of the genre, and we already have Featherweight, which is already relevant to someone,” says Saucedo.

The critic explains that the urban genre has been in trend for 10 years, but you can experience what other genres of the moment have experienced over time.

“As rock and roll did in the past, the disco genre, the new wave or electronic music, is in a natural decline,” he points out.

We still need time to know if the lying corridos stay on top or even if they generate more important waves in Spanish-language music.