Decked out in a floor-length black leather coat and white snakeskin boots,
Colombia's king of the drug ballad sweeps onstage, his gold necklace and rings
glittering under a bare bulb.
Uriel Henao and his band, the Tigers of the South, blast into a ballad about
a Good Samaritan cocaine lord, and the drunken crowd erupts into cheers.
Henao, 34, is Colombia's most celebrated singer of "narcocorridos," a
semi-clandestine genre that celebrates the lives and travails of the country's
infamous drug lords, considered by many Colombians as folk heroes.
Their songs have titles such as "Clandestine Airstrip," "Smuggled Goods and
Treason" and "Cartels Alive and Kicking" -- jaunty ditties about a lavish
lifestyle of cocaine trafficking, beauty queen girlfriends and gangland justice.
In one song, Henao croons: "I have all the women I want, models and beauty
queens. I like the finest whisky. I am more powerful than Pablo Escobar. This is
the good life."
Henao, who calls himself a minstrel of Colombian life, says his songs do not
glorify drug kingpins but talk about daily reality in Colombia, the world's
largest cocaine producer. He also spins tales of poor coca growers, forced to
cultivate the raw ingredient for cocaine to make a living.
"We sing about what is going on in Colombia," Henao said during a concert in
a working-class district in the capital Bogota, where he enjoys icon status. "We
can't hide the fact that a lot of people live off the coca business and that
drug traffickers are popular heroes among the poor."
Of late, narcocorridos have become less cheerful as President Alvaro Uribe
intensifies a US-backed crop-spraying offensive to crush coca cultivation and
steps up the pace of arrests and extraditions of smugglers to the United States.
GRINGO PLANES AND BROKEN-HEARTED DRUG LORDS
Recent songs wail about lush fields of coca burned by "gringo planes" and
broken-hearted drug lords and their lackeys abandoned by their women as the law
breathes down their necks.
Narcocorridos are hugely popular in villages where coca cultivation is the
basis of the economy. The rudimentary tunes feature accordion, guitar and drums
with a simple melody and oom-pah beat. Some songs have sound effects such as
gunshots or drug planes landing in clandestine airstrips.
Many radio stations refuse to air the songs, saying they can bring trouble.
The genre lives on mostly in taverns and country fairs, played by travelling
bands, says Alirio Castillo, who has produced six compilation CDs of
narcocorrido hits.
After the demise of the big drug cartels, narcocorridos diversified their
themes to include unemployment, rural life, corruption and outlawed groups
fighting in the country's war.
In "The Story of a Guerrilla and a Paramilitary," Henao tells of two peasants
who get drunk in a brothel and end up killing each other in a shootout after
learning they belong to rival outlaw groups.
He says he gets his inspiration crisscrossing Colombia in a pick-up truck
with his 10-strong band which includes two mini-skirted dancers.
Tigers of the South drew its name from the Grammy-winning Tigres del Norte
(Tigers of the North), an internationally successful band of Mexican immigrants.
Henao's audience is mostly local.
His performance on a recent drizzly night took place in a dimly lit garage
across the street from a cock-fighting ring.
After a triumphant entry in which he parted the sea of fans like a modern
Moses, Henao belted out his hit "I Prefer a Tomb in Colombia to a Prison Cell in
the United States." Fans roared back the lyrics, reaching out to touch their
idol.
"The powerful don't like this music but it's the music of the country people.
Many of us left the countryside to find jobs in the big city so we come to
listen to village stories," said Andres Guzman, a 25-year-old "narcocorrido"
enthusiast.
Henao said he is penning a song about one of the country's wiliest drug
lords, former Cali cartel boss Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela, known as the Chess
Player, who was arrested last March.
"I'm waiting for Gilberto to be extradited to the United States to release
the song. It's going to be a big hit."
