Mexican authorities are offering state protection to popular regional Mexican singer Nathanael Cano and other artists after a ruthless drug cartel in northern Mexico publicly threatened them, prosecutors confirmed to The Associated Press on Tuesday.
Photos of a banner threatening the life of Kano, a singer of carridas, a music genre often linked to drug cartel violence, and several other artists in the Sonoran region circulated on social media over the weekend.
The banner appears to be signed by Jalisco Matasalas, a group within the Sinaloa cartel faction known as the Chapitos, which has been terrorizing northern Mexico in recent months in a bloody power struggle. Chapitos – included the sons of notorious drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman – used a corkscrew, electric shock and hot chili peppers torturing his opponents while some of their victims were “fed alive or dead to tigers,” according to an indictment released by the US Department of Justice.
Chapito accused the singers of “financially assisting” a rival gang known as Salazares.
“This is the last time you'll get a warning, just in time to stop the bullshit. Mind your own business,” the banner read. “If you do not heed this warning, you will be shot.”
Ismael Rosas/Eyepix Group/LightRocket via Getty Images
Sonoran prosecutors told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the threatening message was found hanging at the school and that they were investigating.
Alan de la Rosa, a spokesman for the prosecutor's office, said the authorities offered state protection to the artists to “prevent any aggression related to the direct threat depicted on the banner.” He did not specify the nature of the protection.
Cano's communications team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Comprised of ballads from northern Mexico, corridos are a musical genre that has long been associated with drugs, but they also reflect the harsh reality many Mexicans face living in the midst of drug violence. This genre, along with Mexican regional music, is experiencing a revival with young artists such as Cano and Peso Pluma combining classical styles with other genres such as trap.
Spotify has seen a 400% increase in Mexican music streaming over the past five years, and in 2023, Mexican artist Pesa Plumo surpassed Taylor Swift as the most streamed artist on YouTube.
Such artists have long faced harsh criticism from the authorities and threats from drug gangs.
In 2023 Light weight – who paid tribute to El Chapo in song – was forced to cancel a show in Tijuana after the 25-year-old received threats from a rival Sinaloa cartel warning that “this will be your last show” if he went ahead with the concert .
In the same year, threats of violence forced the cancellation of a scheduled concert by Norteño Grupo Arriesgado in Tijuana.
Tijuana later banned the performance of narco ballads altogether to protect the “eyes and ears” of the youth in an attempt to curb the violence. Local authorities in northern states have previously banned musicians from singing narcocarido.
In November in Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum vowed to start a campaign to promote other, less violent styles of music that are not like this associated with drug traffickers in an attempt to stop glorifying them.
Kano's threat comes after a surge in violence in Sinaloa and other states in northern Mexico.
The threats against Cano came after a surge in violence in Sinaloa and other northern Mexican states sparked by the kidnapping and capture of a drug lord Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and the following all out war between enemy factions of the Sinaloa cartel, including the one that allegedly threatened Kano.
Bodies turned up all over Sinaloa, often left in the streets or in cars hats on the head or pizza slices or boxes with knives attached to them. The pizza and the sombrero became the unofficial symbols of the warring cartel groups, emphasizing the brutality of their war.