The recurring debates surrounding lyrics about Mexico’s drug trade seem to have been left outside the studio where Natanael Cano prepared his latest album. This Thursday, the singer from Sonora released ‘Natanael Cano, Vol. 1’, a 15-track record filled with love songs, covers of ballads by Cristian Castro and Jeanette, and—as a finishing touch—tracks alluding to organized crime. The album stands as the crystallization of the revitalized ‘sierreño’ sound that began to take shape a decade ago, driven by artists like Crecer Germán and Ariel Camacho, who set the pace during the undefined transition between *corridos alterados* and ‘corridos tumbados’.
String instruments and the tuba drive the rhythms of the album—the thirteenth studio release in the career of Natanael Cano. At 25, he is considered the pioneer of *corridos tumbados*, a subgenre that blends traditional ‘corridos’ with urban culture. Cano chose the album’s title because he views it as a fresh start: “I feel like my career is just beginning, that hard-hitting *corridos* are making a comeback, and that we’re giving Mexican music another push,” he said in early August during an interview on Apple Music. This Thursday, Cano presented the album to his fans at a listening party held at the Pepsi Center in Mexico City.
Musical influences appear to have formed the foundation of the project. The singer has repeatedly cited Ariel Camacho as one of his primary musical inspirations—having released a tribute album to the Sinaloa-born artist in 2025—and the new album seems to capture that very essence. While the hedonistic lyrics that have characterized the *tumbado* genre in recent years are set aside this time, the album retains references to the drug trade and love—key pillars of Camacho’s *El Karma* (2015). Cano also collaborates on the track “Apelativo” with Crecer Germán, another key figure from the same musical movement.
A few weeks ago, Cano released three tracks from the album in advance: “Aprevenido,” “Pa la maña,” and “La Cherokee.” It is in this last track that the first indirect allusion to a criminal appears—specifically to Alfredo Beltrán Leyva, former leader of the Beltrán Leyva Cartel (“play ‘El Barba Cerrada’ on the guitars for me”). “El Barba Cerrada” is a ‘corrido’ popularized by versions such as the one by Los Dareyes de la Sierra. The release of these three tracks served as a brief preview of the artist’s return to ‘corridos’, following the launch of ‘Porque la demora ‘ last summer—an urban album featuring trap and reggaeton. However, the remaining *corridos* were released this Thursday.
Among them is “Apelativo,” in which he sings about the romanticized lifestyle of a criminal referred to as “Chiquilín”: “Nicknamed Chiquilín, the armed enforcer for the organization.” He revisits this theme in “En Vela” or “La Boina,” where the references might seem somewhat more explicit: “At the command of the boss—no need to even name him […] We are the Salazars [possibly a reference to the powerful family linked to the Sinaloa Cartel], and if I make it out of the job, write to me, Dad.”
Yet, not all the lyrics revolve around the criminal underworld. Natanael Cano covers two classic ballads in the ‘corrido tumbado’ style: “Por amarte así,” by Mexican singer Cristian Castro, and “Frente a frente,” by British-Spanish singer Jeanette. This practice of adapting classics to the *sierreño* guitar style is nothing new for the Sonoran artist, who previously covered Marco Antonio Solís’s “O me voy o te vas” in 2023.
The album thus delves into the roots of ‘corridos tumbados’—a genre that has recently propelled Mexican music to the top of major charts like Billboard’s—while also reigniting the long-standing controversy regarding lyrics that glorify drug trafficking. It is somewhat similar to what happened with Los Tigres del Norte in the late 1980s or with the ‘corridos alterados ‘ subgenre—which chronicled the brutality of the war on drugs—in the early 2010s. While the federal government has not banned the lyrics or concerts in recent years, some states have restricted the genre by imposing hefty fines or canceling performances in an effort to curb violence in their territories.
Natanael Cano is one of the artists who has found himself at the center of controversy over his lyrics. However, he did not feel the impact as severely as expected: “I thought I was going to feel the blow more. But no, things were handled well; there were inquiries, and we would send setlists to the states where we were scheduled to perform. They took the time to listen and say, ‘You know what? Not this one or that one,'” he noted last year in an interview with Héctor Elí. Despite this, he remains skeptical about the policy. “Banning *corridos* isn’t going to fix or solve anything… If they forbid us from singing something, that’s fine. If it’s for the better, as they claim, we aren’t going to oppose it. And we never did oppose it, but [censorship] isn’t the right way to go about it,” he remarked.
