Grupo Firme has announced that its latest release, Evolución, does not include corridos tumbados. As part of their tour, La última peda, which will bring them to Mexico City in June, Eduin Caz, the band’s singer, has distanced himself from songs in this genre and clarified that the ones they previously included in their repertoire are “fictional.”
In this way, the band seeks to distance itself from the controversy surrounding Los Alegres del Barranco in recent weeks, a group that found itself in the eye of a storm due to the projection of images of Nemesio Oseguera, alias El Mencho, leader of the Jalisco Nueva Generación Cartel, and Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán, former head of the Sinaloa Cartel, during one of their concerts.
“We’re not a group that sings corridos. The types of corridos we’ve sung are fictional corridos. […] Reality isn’t something that moves me much. We’re more guided by love and heartbreak,” Caz said during a press conference in Mexico City.
Despite the image that Grupo Firme seeks to project on stage and distance itself from the genre, it’s undeniable that their repertoire includes narcocorridos, as songs like “Se fue la pantera,” one of the most requested in their discography, references Jesús Esteban Espinoza Velázquez—who was shot and killed in a confrontation in La Paz, Baja California Sur—an operative for the former Sinaloa Cartel leader Dámaso López, alias El Licenciado.
Grupo Firme has also dedicated another composition to Rafael Caro Quintero, nicknamed “El Narco de Narcos,” one of the founders of the now-defunct Guadalajara Cartel along with Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo. The song “Caro Quintero” addresses the business and crimes for which this drug trafficker was convicted. He is considered a coveted prize by the United States, where he was recently extradited, and whom the neighboring country to the north has been pursuing for 40 years.
