“I like corridos because they tell the real events of our people,” admits a voice at the beginning of Los Tigres del Norte’s Jefe de Jefes. “Yes, I like them too,” chimes in another, “because they sing pure truth.” And that, in a nutshell, is precisely the draw of this Mexican-American band. Ever since 1974’s “Contrabando y Traición,” a gripping ballad about drug smugglers, Los Tigres del Norte have served as truth-tellers, bards of the contemporary Mexican experience, via their sweet and unforgettable vocal harmonies and lilting norteño rhythms.
Like their 1989 mid-career breakthrough album Corridos Prohibidos, 1997’s Jefe de Jefes weaves tales of narcos and federales, outlaws and betrayals, with a filmmaker’s eye for detail and a philosopher’s keen ethical sensibility. In “El Dolor de un Padre,” a father mourns the loss of his son to addiction; “El General” begins as a song about the fall of a corrupt general, but it ends with a sly dig at American users’ culpability in fueling Mexico’s drug war. Los Tigres never stoop to mere tut-tutting, though: The narrative twists of a song like “Carne Quemada,” in which a tortured man gets his revenge, suggest that irony is its own weapon against the glorification of the cartels.
In “El Mojado Acaudalado,” they expand their vision to include the plight of Mexican immigrants in the United States. The song’s protagonist isn’t struggling; he’s made his fortune up North, but he misses his homeland and vows to be buried there. It’s the kind of sly, proud take on the immigrant experience you’d be hard-pressed to find anywhere else. If hip-hop is black America’s cable news, as Public Enemy’s Chuck D once declared, Jefe de Jefes proves Los Tigres del Norte the poet laureates of the borderlands.