Regional Goes Global, Part 3: How a magical Mexican town keeps banda tradition alive
NPR Music
NPR
4.3 • 3.3K Ratings
🗓️ 15 December 2023
⏱️ 30 minutes
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Summary
Anamaria Sayre and Felix Contreras visit the picturesque town Mocorito, a pueblo magico where tradition and pride in the musical heritage runs deep. That's the case even among members of the drug cartels, which are responsible for some of the country's societal ills. It's a complex story as passionate and heartfelt as the music that stretches from the hills of Sinaloa to this side of the U.S.-Mexico border.
Audio for this episode of Alt.Latino was edited and mixed by Joaquin Cotler, with production support from Lilly Quiroz, Suraya Mohamed, Josephine Nyounai and Natalia Fidelholtz. The editor for this episode is Jacob Ganz, and our project manager is Grace Chung. Hazel Cills is the podcast editor and digital editor for Alt.Latino. Our VP of Music and Visuals is Keith Jenkins.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey it's Jesse Thorne from NPR's Bullsey Podcast. |
| 0:03.0 | I'm one of thousands of NPR Network Voices coming to you from over 200 local newsrooms |
| 0:09.5 | across the country. |
| 0:10.8 | We bring all Americans closer together through free and independent |
| 0:14.0 | journalism, music, politics, culture, and so much more, the NPR Network. Learn more |
| 0:18.8 | at NPR.org slash network. You've heard this voice before. |
| 0:23.0 | But since we've heard this voice before... |
| 0:24.0 | No, so... |
| 0:26.0 | But since we've heard it in the first episode of our series Regional Goals Global, |
| 0:37.0 | Besselbluma has been crowned one of the top five most streamed artists of 2023 on Spotify keeping company with pop icons |
| 0:46.1 | Taylor Swift and Harry Styles among others. That's right billions of streams and |
| 0:52.0 | an untold number of people around the world connected through Musica mehicana. |
| 0:59.0 | As we traveled around the US in the first two episodes, we discovered that a lot of the explosion of this music |
| 1:04.8 | is largely because of the ways that Mexican American kids are streaming, |
| 1:09.6 | creating, and seeing themselves in this music, |
| 1:13.0 | connecting not only with each other, |
| 1:15.0 | but with their own identities. |
| 1:19.0 | Remember Diana talking about her cousin in Nashville? |
| 1:22.0 | I don't think she's ever been to Mexico, and she's very pretty. Deanna talking about her cousin in Nashville? |
| 1:22.6 | I don't think she's ever been to Mexico, |
| 1:24.3 | and she's very proud of being Mexican. |
| 1:26.3 | The music does not just impact what she listens to on the lady, |
... |
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