“For the narcos, getting a ballad about them is like getting a doctorate,” Conrado says.
Conrado tells me the story of one low-level trafficker who paid to get a particularly catchy ballad made about him. Soon everyone played it on his car stereo.
“The crime bosses were like, ‘Bring me the guy from that song. I want him to do the job for me.’ So he rose through the ranks because of the song.”
“So what has happened to him now?” I asked.
“Oh, they killed him. He got too big. It was because of the song, really.”