Regional Goes Global, Part 3: How a magical Mexican town keeps banda tradition alive

Alt.Latino

NPR

Music

4.5 • 673 Ratings

🗓️ 15 December 2023

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

You know all those tubas and brass instruments you hear behind your favorite regional Mexican hits? That's banda sinaloense and this week Alt.Latino wraps up the Regional Goes Global series with a visit to Sinaloa, Mexico, the birthplace of the genre.

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.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	These days, there's a lot of news.
0:01.8	It can be hard to keep up with what it means for you, your family, and your community.
0:06.7	Consider this from NPR as a podcast that helps you make sense of the news.
0:11.1	Six days a week, we bring you a deep dive on a story and provide the context, backstory, and analysis you need to understand our rapidly changing world.
0:20.4	Listen to the Consider This Podcast from NPR.
0:23.6	You've heard this voice before.
0:38.6	But since we've heard it in the first episode of our series Regional Goals Global,
0:45.0	Pesto Pluma has been crowned one of the top five most streamed artists of 2023 on Spotify,
0:50.3	keeping company with pop icons Taylor Swift and Harry Styles, among others.
0:53.5	That's right, billions of streams. And an untold number of people around the world connected
0:57.2	through Musica Mexicana.
1:00.3	As we traveled around the U.S. in the first two episodes, we discovered that a lot of the
1:05.3	explosion of this music is largely because of the ways that Mexican-American kids are streaming, creating, and seeing
1:12.9	themselves in this music, connecting not only with each other, but with their own identities.
1:21.1	Remember Diana talking about her cousin in Nashville?
1:23.9	I don't think she's ever been to Mexico, and she's very proud of being Mexican.
1:28.0	The music does not just impact what she listens to on the lady-day, but also like how
1:31.5	you dress is or like how she talks or like her identity of being Mexican.
1:35.1	Like, yeah, I love it.
1:37.9	Or Armando Martinez of Yerita and Suisencia in Yakima.
1:42.6	I was raised by a Mexican parents that gave me that Mexican feeling.
1:48.1	But I was raised in the U.S.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.