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Los Tigres del Norte

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Los Tigres del Norte

Los Tigres del Norte (English: The Tigers of the North) are a norteño band from San Jose, California. Originally founded in the small town Rosa Morada in the municipality of Mocorito, Sinaloa, Mexico, with sales of 32 million albums, the band is one of the most recognized acts in regional Mexican music, due to their long history and their successes within the Mexican community in the diaspora. The band is famous for its political corridos, some of which have been censored, even in its own country. The band is the only Mexican group to win 7 Grammy Awards and 12 Latin Grammys. In addition, the band has made 40 films alongside the Almada brothers (Mario and Fernando) among other well-known Mexican actors.

The band's style is based on regional music of Mexico, using mainly instruments such as the electric bass (or double bass), accordion, bass, drums, and sometimes other percussion instruments. The lyrics in their songs fluctuate between the romantic and the corrido, including narcocorridos, in which they narrate the experience of members of drug gangs operating in Mexico. The narcocorrido song "Muerte Anunciada", for example, stands out, as it is dedicated to the legendary Mexican drug trafficker Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, "El Jefe de Jefes." In that song, the band tells the story of the power and influence of the now imprisoned Gallardo. Another of their famous narcocorridos, "The Queen of the South", is based on a novel by Arturo Pérez-Reverte from which a television series was made based on the Spanish writer's work. They have become famous in Mexico and the United States, especially in California and Texas, mainly due to the large number of Mexicans living there. They also have found considerable fame in Colombia.

The band won a Grammy Award in 1988 for their album Gracias, América sin Fronteras, and twelve years later their album Herencia de Familia won the award for Best Norteño Album at the first ever Latin Grammys. A year later, in the second edition of the awards, they were nominated again for Best Norteño Album, this time for De Paisano a Paisano, and Best Regional Mexican Song for the song of the same title from that album. Their 2001 song "Somos Más Americanos" was ranked at No. 185 on the Rolling Stone list of "The 250 Greatest Songs of the 21st Century So Far".

The band was started by Rosa Morada [es], Mocorito, Sinaloa, Mexico natives Jorge Hernández, his brothers, and their cousins. They began recording after moving to San Jose, California in the late 1960s, when all the members were still in their teens. They were sponsored by a local record company, Discos Fama, owned by an Englishman named Arthur Walker, who took them under his wing and helped them find jobs and material, as well as recording all of their early albums.

Los Tigres del Norte were at first only locally popular, but took off after Jorge and Arthur Walker heard a Los Angeles mariachi singer perform a song in early 1971 about a couple of drug runners, Emilio Varela and Camelia la Texana. There had been occasional ballads (corridos, in Mexican terminology) about the cross-border drug trade ever since Prohibition in the 1920s, but never a song as cinematic as this, featuring a woman smuggler who shoots the man and takes off with the money. After getting permission to record this song, Los Tigres del Norte released "Contrabando y traición" ("Contraband and Betrayal") in 1974. The song quickly hit on both sides of the border, inspired a series of movies, and kicked off one of the most remarkable careers in Spanish-language music.

In norteño form, Los Tigres del Norte have been able to portray "real life" in a manner that strikes a chord with people across the Americas. Many of their most popular songs consist of tales or corridos about life, love, and the struggle to survive in an imperfect world. They regularly touch on the subject of narcotics and illegal immigration, but they have also shared stories of love and betrayal between a man and a woman. Together, the band and its public has turned norteño music into an international genre. The band has modernized the music, infusing it with bolero, cumbia, rock rhythms, and waltzes. They also prominently incorporate a saxophone into some of their songs. As a result, it can be said that they also perform norteño with sax in addition to traditional accordion-led norteño.[citation needed]

On January 9, 2007, Los Tigres del Norte was honored as a BMI Icon at the 14th annual BMI Latin Awards. Los Tigres, who were saluted that evening with an all-star musical tribute, were being honored as BMI Icons for their "unique and indelible influence on generations of music makers." They joined an elite list that includes such Latin music giants as Juan Luis Guerra and Carlos Santana.

On October 16, 2009, Los Tigres del Norte held a Concert in Guadalupe, Nuevo León (outside of Monterrey) at the Annual Expo Guadalupe that lasted 12 hours, breaking their own record of 9 hours from previous year. It began on Saturday night and ended on Sunday at 9 a.m., not uncommon for Los Tigres del Norte. They are known for having encores at their concerts that can last more than an hour after the scheduled ending of the concert.[citation needed]

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