The favored Mexican regional music band Grupo Firme introduced on Friday that it was canceling a efficiency in a music pageant in California over the weekend after the US authorities suspended the musicians’ visas.
It comes after the U.S. State Division has revoked visas of quite a few Mexican musicians for taking part in a style of music that it says glorifies cartel violence. The announcement additionally got here simply two days after the our bodies of 5 Mexican musicians have been present in Reynosa alongside the Texas border.
Grupo Firme, which has soared to worldwide fame enjoying Mexican regional music, mentioned in a press release posted on its Instagram account that the visas of them and their workforce are at present underneath “administrative assessment by the U.S. Embassy” and that it will make it “inconceivable” for them to carry out within the La Onda Fest to be held within the metropolis of Napa Valley, California on June 1. However the publish did not element what it will imply in the long run for the musical group.
The U.S. Embassy in Mexico mentioned that visa instances are confidential in response to U.S. regulation and could not present extra info on the case.
Eduardo Verdugo / AP
The suspension is simply the newest in a sequence of strikes the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has taken concentrating on Mexican artists within the style, who in some instances have glorified the leaders of cartels as type of Robin Hood figures. Whereas the style of “narco-corridos” has stirred controversy, a lot of the music additionally speaks to the cruel realities going through Mexican youth caught in cartel violence.
Two months in the past, the Mexican musical group Los Alegres del Barranco was sanctioned after it projected pictures of the chief of the scary Jalisco New Technology Cartel at a live performance within the western state of Jalisco.
“I am a agency believer in freedom of expression, however that does not imply that expression must be freed from penalties,” U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau mentioned on the time. “The very last thing we’d like is a welcome mat for individuals who extol criminals and terrorists.”
However Grupo Firme has taken steps in current months to distance itself from the side of the musical style glorifying prison teams, saying in April shortly after the controversy that it will not sing such music in concert events.
Musicians caught in cartel turf wars
Mexican musicians have beforehand been focused by prison teams that pay them to compose and carry out songs that glorify the exploits of their leaders.
Such performers usually stay in shut proximity to their drug lord patrons, and may at instances get caught up in cartel turf battles.
On Thursday, the 5 musicians from the band Grupo Fugitivo have been discovered useless after prosecutors mentioned that they had been kidnapped. Officers mentioned 9 suspects believed to be a part of a faction of the Gulf Cartel, which has robust presence within the metropolis, have been arrested.
Stringer / REUTERS 
“Narcocorridos” are a controversial sub-genre of music in Mexico, and the songs have caught the eye of President Claudia Sheinbaum, who not too long ago launched a music contest “for peace and towards addictions,” looking for to counter the recognition of the music amongst younger folks in Mexico and the US.
A number of areas within the nation have banned “narcocorridos,” sparking a current riot throughout a live performance after a singer refused to carry out a few of his hottest songs.
In January this yr, a small airplane was reported to have dropped pamphlets on a northwestern metropolis threatening round 20 music artists and influencers for alleged dealings with a warring faction of the Sinaloa drug cartel.
In 2018, armed males kidnapped two members of the musical group “Los Norteños de Río Bravo,” whose our bodies have been later discovered on the federal freeway connecting Reynosa to Río Bravo, Tamaulipas.
In 2013, 17 musicians from the group Kombo Kolombia have been executed by alleged cartel members within the northeastern state of Nuevo Leon, allegedly due to hyperlinks to a rival gang.
Agence France-Presse contributed to this report.
