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Movement in Mexico that is aimed towards gender based violence, inequality, and the support for women's rights.

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Fed up with escalating gender-based attacks and murders, activists called for a daylong national strike by women to demand greater support for their rights.

Women protested gender-based violence in Mexico City earlier this month. Credit... Andres Martinez Casares/Reuters

MEXICO CITY - No women in offices or schools. No women in restaurants or stores. No women on public transportation, in cars or on the street.

A country without women, for one day.

That's the vision of an alliance of feminist groups in Mexico that - fueled by the rising violence against women and girls, including two horrific murders that appalled the nation this month - have called for a 24-hour strike by the country's female population on March 9.

The action is to protest gender-based violence, inequality and the culture of machismo, and to demand greater support for women's rights. Promoted under the hashtag #UNDÍASINNOSOTRAS, A Day Without Us, it has gained extraordinary momentum across this country of more than 120 million, with wide-ranging buy-in from the public and private sectors, civic groups, religious leaders and many, if not most, women.

The support has cut across the boundaries of class, ethnicity, wealth and politics that fracture this nation, and has given organizers hope that this might be not just a monumental event but also a watershed moment in the modern history of Mexico.

"So many of our slogans and mottos - like, 'The revolution will be feminist,' or 'The future is feminist' - they talked about this moment," said Arussi Unda, the spokeswoman for Las Brujas del Mar, a feminist collective in the state of Veracruz that is helping to mobilize the strike. "It seems like the moment might already be here."

In the past year, feminist activism in Mexico, partly inspired by the global #MeToo movement, has gained new energy as women have taken to the streets in anger and frustration to protest gender-based violence and entrenched attitudes of machismo. The protests have been rowdy and, at times, violent, as participants have smashed windows and defaced public monuments - including the National Palace - with spray-painted slogans and feminist exhortations.

Sabina Berman, a Mexican novelist and feminist activist, said that the nucleus of these latest protests was a younger generation of women who have lost patience with a more measured approach to activism.

"They have decided to skip the pacifist, smiling kind of protests, and instead smash windows," she said. "It was them who lit the spark by taking that further step, and they made us all wake up."

After simmering for months, the movement reached a roiling boil this month after the horrific murders of a woman and a girl.

Ingrid Escamilla, 25, a Mexico City resident, was stabbed, skinned and disemboweled. Her body was found on Feb. 9, and photos of her mutilated body were leaked to tabloids, which published the images on their front pages, adding to the public outrage.

On Feb. 11, Fátima Cecilia Aldrighett, 7, was abducted from her primary school in Mexico City and her body was discovered wrapped in a plastic bag next to a construction site on the outskirts of the capital.

Ms. Unda said her feminist activist group "was shaken to its core" by the deaths and met with other groups to decide how to respond.

"We asked each other, 'What else has to happen for this to change?'" she recalled.

Instead of occupying public spaces, the traditional approach to protest, they decided to stage an action that symbolized women's disappearance from them - "in order to send a message of anger and rejection of violence against women," she said.

For participants in the strike on March 9, the instructions are straightforward: Stay home. The strike will come a day after International Women's Day, during which protesters are expected to take to streets across the country.

Many corporations and companies have voiced their support for the strike and said they would not penalize their female employees who took the day off.

Mexico's Business Coordinating Council, an influential coalition of business groups, issued a statement urging companies to support employees who participate in the strike.

"Without a doubt, the response of the authorities in the past few years has not been adequate or sufficient," the council said, referring to the crisis of violence against women. "But we have all failed as a society."

"It is time for solidarity and empathy," the statement continued, "but also time for responsibility and actions. Each and every one of us must do our part."

One large national business group, Concanaco Servytur, estimated that the one-day strike would cost the Mexican economy $1.37 billion.

Many branches of local, state and federal government have also voiced their support for employees who participate in the strike.

Claudia Sheinbaum, the mayor of Mexico City, said she had instructed all the department heads in municipal government not to penalize any female employees who stayed away from work on the day of the strike. She said the city employed about 150,000 women.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has spoken generally in support of citizens' rights to protest. But he has also seen the specter of political machinations in the strike, and has said that his opponents were using the moment to sow political opposition to his administration.

"No manipulation, no opportunism," he cautioned during a news conference this week.

The strike's organizers and others, however, have shrugged off the president's insinuation that the event, for some, is a political gambit.

"This is not against his government or any government," Ms. Berman said. "It is against the entire Mexican state, against the private sector, against the men who harass, who rape, who kill, and against those good men who stand by and do nothing."

The organizers hope that the strike is not simply a fleeting demonstration but that it inspires a robust national conversation and effects substantive changes across Mexican society. These include specific measures - such as the improvement of corporate day care facilities for working mothers - and broader shifts in attitudes toward women and women's rights.

"What we really want is for this not to end up being an anecdote, or a nice picture from the march," Ms. Unda said, "but rather for it to turn into concrete action."

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Women in Mexico Are Urged to Disappear for a Day in Protest

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Fed up with escalating gender-based attacks and murders, activists called for a daylong national strike by women to demand greater support for their rights. MEXICO CITY - No women in offices or schools. No women in restaurants or stores. No women on public transportation, in cars or on the street.

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Mexico president's responded to the Mexico protests on innocent lives of women and girls being killed for no reason by calling for no change in action planned.

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A day after Mexico's women collectively shut down the country in an eruption of fury over gender violence, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has insisted that he will not try a new strategy to stop femicides.

Thousands of women went on strike on Monday, in a historic protest against the murder of women and girls - and the failure of successive governments' efforts to stop a crisis in which around 10 women are murdered every day.

But asked on Tuesday if he would consider a new approach to the problem, López Obrador replied: "No - on the contrary, we are going to reinforce the same strategy of looking at the causes of violence."

The comments echoed the president's previous response to Mexico's spiraling drug war violence, which he has insisted can be reined in with an ill-defined policy of "moral renewal".

López Obrador, known as Amlo went on to list a litany of possible solutions, including "finding ways to live in a better society ... [making sure] that there is no unemployment, that there are good salaries, that family disintegration is avoided, that there are proper salaries, that values are strengthened."

He did not use the word "femicide" or mention any gender issues or specific security concerns for women.

He did, however, cast himself as the victim of a conspiracy as he accused "conservatives" of "putting on the mask of feminism and saying, 'we're going to get rid of the government.'"

People participate in a protest against gender-based violence outside the National Palace in Mexico City, Mexico, on 18 February 2020. Photograph: Gustavo Graf/Reuters

A string of especially gruesome murders have injected new urgency into Mexican women's calls for action on femicides.

But Amlo has repeatedly voiced misgivings about the growing women's protests.

In one press conference, he appeared bothered by a question on femicides - which he said overshadowed his plans to raffle off the presidential aircraft.

One of his cabinet members advised women against striking on the grounds that they might be "tempted to do the dishes" if they stayed at home.

Amlo surged to power on a promise to overturn "neoliberal" policies, but has proved stubbornly unmoved by social issues such as abortion, marriage equality - and women's rights.

"Amlo sees that these protests are organized by groups other than his - so he just dismisses them," said Alicia Islas, a doctoral student and public policy instructor at the Autonomous National University of Mexico.

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Mexico president's response to historic femicide protests: more of the same

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A day after Mexico's women collectively shut down the country in an eruption of fury over gender violence, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has insisted that he will not try a new strategy to stop femicides.

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On March 8, the streets of the Sonoran capital, Hermosillo echoed with chants and car horns, as more than a thousand women marched on International Women's Day, joining tens of thousands across the country calling for an end of the crisis of killings and disappearances of women and girls in Mexico.

Last year along, nearly 3,800 women and girls were murdered in Mexico. More than 10 a day on average.

So despite the ongoing pandemic, women of all ages came out with friends, sisters and daughters demanding attention for the violence that has touched nearly every woman's life.

"I'm here because I lost a friend, I lost Ámbar," said Cecilia Durazo. "And because I won't want to love my sister. And for my daughter. So that tomorrow, they will be free."

Ámbar, a 20-year-old architecture student who was raped, strangled and stabbed more than 60 times in Hermosillo in May 2019.

The femicide - or murder of a woman because of her gender - was one of three reported on the same day that year, now known in Sonora as "Black Thursday."

Durazo marched with her 4-year-old daughter, Regina, who held up a sign scrawled in purple marker with her shaky toddler script - "My mom is teaching me to fight for my rights."

Nearby, doctors Renée Rivera and María Soto hold up signs honoring femicide victim Mariana Sánchez, who was found hanged outside the medical clinic where she worked in southern Mexico in January.

Just two months earlier she reported she had been sexually assaulted by a member of the community. Authorities never investigated the complaint.

"We're here for ourselves, for all women, but in our hearts, we're also here for Mariana," Soto said. "We're here in her memory."

As the crowd gathered in a city plaza, a member of one of Sonora's feminist collectives called their attention, and began to read a statement on International Women's Day.

"Today, we aren't out here to celebrate our condition as women. We're not here to celebrate anything," she said into a megaphone.

Instead, women in Hermosillo and across the country were demanding their rights, honoring those who are gone and showing their world they're still here.

The crowd erupted in cheers and chants as she finished the speech.

Violence In A Pandemic

It's never been easy for women to speak out against violence in Mexico, but it's gotten even harder amid the pandemic, says Andrea Sánchez, a member of the local feminist group Marea Verde, or green wave, that is fighting, among other things for women's right to safe and legal abortions.

"It's been difficult to make the decision to take to the streets. We've all faced illness, we've had loved ones who have died from the coronavirus," she said. "But just as the violence hasn't let up during the pandemic, we can't either."

Despite an uptick in femicides and murders of women early in the pandemic, when the average number of women killed jumped from 10 to 11 daily, official figures show that overall the number of women killed in 2020 was nearly the same as in 2019, when Mexico reported a record 3,837 murdered women.

Of those killings, 369 were classified as femicides in 2019. In 2020, Mexico reported 367 femicides. That classification, however, is highly dependent on each state. Overall, about 25 percent of murders of women are classified as femicides in Mexico.

But states ranged from as few as 4% of murders of women being classified as femicides in Guanajuato (20 of 433 murdered women) to more than 70 percent given that designation in Coahuila (29 of 38) and Sinaloa (27 of 38). In Sonora, 36% of women murdered were classified as femicides in 2020, or of 87 women murdered in Sonora last year, 32 were considered femicides.

And while femicides remained stable from 2019 to 2020, other figures from last year show significant increases in gender violence.

"Disappearances, especially of girls, adolescents and women, have definitely been increasing," said Krimilda Bernal, a data analyst for the citizen watchdog group Sonora Security Observatory. "And unfortunately we project that crimes against women will continue rising, both of those who are trapped in dangerous situations at home because of the pandemic, as well as because of the broader situation of violence in the country."

Nearly 2,000 women and girls went missing last year in Mexico, the highest number in recent years. Most have never been found.

In Sonora, legislators declared a humanitarian emergency last October due to the growing number of missing girls. The state is now among the top five in the nation for both disappearances and clandestine graves, which are often discovered by loved ones dedicated to finding the missing - dead or alive. This week alone, authorities have publicized the disappearances of seven women in the state.

Emergency calls related to violence against women also rose more than 30% in 2020, to more than 260,000 from about 197,700 in 2019. In March 2020, women made 26,000 911 calls reporting domestic violence, sexual abuse, harassment and other gender-based crimes, the highest number ever reported in Mexico. And the National Network of Shelters reported that three times as many women sought refuge in 2020 than in previous years.

"We can also see that authorities are failing victims," Bernal added.

In Mexico, impunity is high, women who report abuse are often revictimized, and the president has repeatedly minimized the issue, Bernal said. That means the real number of women who are experiencing violence is likely even higher than the numbers suggest, she said.

That's a problem Wendy Briceño said she recognizes.

"The numbers are incredibly high. Seventy percent of women over the age of 15 in Mexico report that they have experienced some kind of violence because of their gender," said Briceño, a congressional delegate from Sonora and head of the body's Gender Equality Commission. "That's a tremendous number."

Addressing that scale of violence, she said, will require much greater commitment from all levels of government, including by her own Morena party, led by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

But demonstrations across the country this month show that the pandemic hasn't stopped the movement's efforts to make Mexico confront the grisly reality of gender violence, she said.

"It shows that these movements, these expressions are still alive," she said.

Resistance And Solidarity

Roaring chants and songs at the Hermosillo march at times fell silent.

Hundreds of women stood shoulder to shoulder, listening to the sobs of the mother and sisters of a 13-year-old girl murdered years before. Around them, women embraced, raised their fists and erupted in shouts of support.

"You're not alone," they chanted. "Your fight is our fight."

"A lot of people don't agree with these movements," said Cecilia Durazo, who was marching with her daughter. "But when you lose someone, when you lose a friend or family member, you know that this is what you have to do. Because if you don't come out, if you don't shout, no one is going to listen to you. We'll remain behind. We won't move forward. Nothing will change."

Standing in solidary with other women to make the impacts of violence visible, she said, is the only way to change the situation for women in Mexico.

In Mexico City, The Fight For Women's Rights Follows A Tampon Ban

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MEXICO CITY - In Mexico's capital, the female struggle for justice and equality is clashing with environmentalism and private and public interests.

For years, Mexico City has been a progressive leader for women's rights, including legal abortion, reserved seats in public transportation and gender parity rules for public offices. But now issues surrounding access to female sanitary products are stirring a tug-of-war between businesses, feminists, environmentalists and the government.

Every month, for about 40 years of their lives, women have a period. And despite being a natural cycle, menstruation has been surrounded by prejudices and taboos.

"Tampons do not cause toxic shocks or make women lose their virginity," says a recent TV ad for a tampon brand trying to break myths.

And tampons are now at the center of a controversy in Mexico City; one that has to do with women's rights. Anahí Rodríguez is part of the conversation.

Looking For Gender Perspective

"When I was on my period, I used to stay on my bench at school during recess; I felt embarrassed and I didn't want to be bullied", Rodríguez recalled.

Now, she's the spokesperson for Menstruación Digna México, a non-partisan group of about 30 nonprofits fighting for women's right to control their bodies.

The organization wants to eliminate taxes from sanitary products, make them free for underprivileged sectors and improve information about menstruation. And a recent environmental law in Mexico City banning single-use plastics, including tampons, is drawing their attention.

"The law has no gender perspective," Rodríguez said.

She said tampons are the physiological and economical preference for many women.

"I know that protecting the environment is very important, but other realities need to be considered as well," the spokesperson said.

Rodríguez said other priorities should include ensuring women's access to clean water and health services, both of which are also important for their period.

Environmentalism And Feminism

Ornela Garelli is the responsible consumption specialist for Greenpeace Mexico.

"The ban is good in itself because menstrual products, including tampons, are contributing to the pollution of our environment," said Garelli.

However, she said he ban needs complementary measures to ensure alternatives to women.

"Feminism or women's right to manage our menstruation doesn't have to be against the protection of the environment," the environmentalist said.

And she said the companies behind these products are also responsible. The single-use plastic bans started last year and have been discussed for even longer.

"They had two years to make that transit and to provide alternatives to women, and they didn't do it," said Garelli.

Garelli said there's no data showing how pollutive female sanitary products are, but Greenpeace estimates it's similar to baby diapers, which account for almost 7% of waste generation.

Like Plastic Straws

Susana Hernández is technical manager of the National Association of the Plastic Industry.

"The government didn't fully include us in the discussion and suddenly ordered us to stop selling certain single-use plastics," Hernández said.

She said the industry is not against regulations, but without a transition, unemployment and business closures have followed, with no time for them to bring alternatives.

"I think that the tampon ban issue is similar to banning plastic straws: their low consumption makes them easier to ban than more common, yet equally polluting products, like diapers or sanitary pads," Hernández said.

Gender Parity And Presidential Machismo

Martha Tagle is a congresswoman focused on gender issues.

"Gender parity in Mexico's congress has facilitated more discussion of women's issues," Tagle said.

The congresswoman said there are current attempts to eliminate a tax on female hygiene products on a federal level or to provide them for free in many local congresses.

The state of Michoacán recently approved a law to distribute female hygiene products in public schools for free.

But Tagle says Mexico City's tampon ban has demonstrated gender gaps. And she says some alternatives to tampons, like menstrual cups, are still expensive and rare.

"According to data gathered by Mexico's Congress, the cost of sanitary products represents up to 8 percent of women's income," Tagle said.

Tagle said female hygiene products are gender-driven taxed products. She said their taxes provide about $143 million annually to the government, while jewelry and fertilizers are tax-exempt.

And Tagle says women's health is not a priority for the federal government under the conservative rhetoric of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

"Some want to change the role of Mexican women, who by tradition take care of their parents," said the president during a public speech last year, as the pandemic evolved and hospitalization was becoming an issue for the State.

López Obrador has been accused of supporting the candidacy for Guerrero governor of Félix Salgado Macedonio, a politician from his party facing sexual harassment accusations.

The president has stated that feminist groups protesting in the country are manipulated by his right-winged political foes. His administration cut expenses on female health issues, such as cancer treatments, and public daycares.

But congresswoman Tagle says the voices of women will keep rising louder than machismo.

"Mexico will change or transform only with the power of women," Tagle said.

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Women's Fight For Rights In Mexico: Violence And Resistance Amid The Pandemic

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On March 8, the streets of the Sonoran capital, Hermosillo echoed with chants and car horns, as more than a thousand women marched on International Women's Day, joining tens of thousands across the country calling for an end of the crisis of killings and disappearances of women and girls in Mexico.

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The Purple Revolution: Women Fight Against Violence And Impunity In Mexico

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Sunday was a day for women to be seen, protesting on the streets of cities across Mexico for International Women’s Day. Monday was a day for them to disappear. After massive feminist rallies on March 8, thousands of women across Mexico joined the “A Day Without Women” strike by not working, shopping…

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Originally started in Argentina, eventually led to a regionwide movement in Latin America countries.

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s darkness descends over the imposing green mountains on the outskirts of Mexico City, Luz Reality, a 32-year-old rapper, steps under a faded orange tarp and through a metal security door into the underground venue. Though a veteran of the city's hip-hop scene, she admits she still gets unnerved by the constant threat of assault in the areas around Ecatepec's clandestine concert venues.

In recent months, this barrio has been plagued by a grisly series of abductions and murders. In one case, a woman was found burned on an empty patch of grass. The victim somehow survived the brutal attack and was still alive when police found her, but died later from her injuries.

As is almost always the case in Ecatepec, the murder went unsolved. People here know better than to expect investigations and arrests - but lately the neighbourhood has been on edge. Frustrated with the violence, residents have banded together to beat and publicly shame alleged criminals on several occasions.

Tonight, Luz couldn't even find a taxi driver willing to drop her off at the venue for her show: an empty Ecatepec lot. She had to walk from the main avenue down desolate streets where kidnappings can happen unnoticed.

The neighbourhood has become regarded as Mexico's " capital of violence against women". Luz knows the stories about women disappearing, but tries not to let fear limit her life. Since 2012, on average more than one woman has been killed every week in Ecatepec, and last year this violence escalated.

The dynamic is similar to what happened in in the northern border city of Ciudad Juárez, just south of the Texas border, in the early 1990s. Earlier this month a Spanish woman was kidnapped from a wealthy area of the city, killed and dumped in a canal in the state of Mexico. Between 2005 and 2015, no fewer than 3,604 women were killed in the state of Mexico, where Ecatepec is located. It's an alarming trend - yet each individual murder is just another statistic that barely gets mentioned in the capital's biggest newspapers.

Not formally part of Mexico City, Ecatepec is a residential area that has grown in fits and bursts. A generation of people from the countryside came to settle here in the 1980s and 90s, trying to carve a niche for themselves on the fringe of Mexico's rapidly transforming, globalised economy.

The streets surrounding the venue hosting Luz and her friends tonight are a shabby agglomeration of dull-grey cinderblock buildings, most of which were improvised one storey at a time. In contrast, the rappers look like fireworks of fluorescent pink and purple, their gold watches and neon attire shimmering over the sea of cement.

With the bass beat thumping, Luz psyches herself up for her performance. She eyes a cadre of teenagers in t-shirts holding plastic cups of beer and Buchanan's whisky (the local favourite), who form a semi-circle in front of the small, second-storey stage. The crowd is young and riled up. In the back corner, a few scruffy men cut up lines of cocaine on a cell-phone. Inside the cement-block walls, the thumping music creates a warm refuge from the world outside.

I was proud of Ecatepec. But now, if I had the chance to leave, I would. I don't see a future here.

Luz Reality

"We're women and we deserve respect!" Luz shouts into her microphone.

One of Mexico's best-established female rappers, she has made a career out of bringing positivity to a negative environment. As she steps out to join her three rapper friends in the centre of the second-floor stage, Alix Toxik (Luz's skinny, ebullient group-mate) grabs the microphone and shouts: "Ladies In Tha Hood in the casa!"

Alix's beet-red hair and gold chains dance as if they are pulsating with an electric current. Then Luz steps out towards the edge of the stage and shouts: "In Mexico there are a lot of femicidios so this song is called For My Girls."

As a manic, minimalist beat streams out of the DJ's speakers, Maya La Insana, Luz's heavyset partner in rhyme, bobs her head and unleashes a rapid-fire volley of lyrics: "I don't deal with fiction, just the truth. We listen and we stay quiet. It's better to run your mouth ... Where are the people who want to criticise me? [The people] who want to finish me off?"

In the crowd, a menacing, broad-shouldered man in black clothes and sun-glasses holds up his smart phone to take video, while a group of teenage boys rises from their refuge along the cement wall to watch the performance.

To the side of the stage, Luz and Alix dance frenetically to the energetic beat, jumping up to rap in unison for the song's chorus: "I still help my girls in the street; I still help my girls on the stage!"

Even with a few technical difficulties, the show is a welcome respite from what has been a difficult period in Ecatepec. A few weeks earlier, an entire family was dismembered and stuffed into bags in the railyard that runs through the neighbourhood. In another incident, two policemen were killed during their lunch break.

For 20 years, though, rap has helped Luz process the world around her. She first heard about it as a teen in the early 1990s. Her friends' families came from different parts of Mexico, so hip-hop became the common chord that tied them together.

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Ecatepec exploded as a byproduct of Mexico's shift from a corrupt, state-led development strategy based on protectionism and nepotism to the current paradigm of neoliberal economic policy and export promotion. Subsidies that had supported small-time agriculture were dismantled, so poor, rural residents flooded down from the mountains into the valley in Mexico City.

As Mexico's economy dipped into crisis and nearly collapsed, the newcomers found themselves in a precarious position. Families built small shacks using found materials and the neighbourhood expanded up into the hills. In 1995 Mexico's economy imploded, leaving hundreds of thousands of workers competing for jobs in the informal economy - hawking sodas at stoplights, selling tacos from carts or working as foot soldiers in Mexico City's expanding criminal enterprises. As kidnappings surged to unprecedented levels and every day was marked by multiple homicides, it became known as the world's most dangerous city.

In this environment, Luz and her friends learned to navigate the streets, shopping for hip-hop cassettes at open-air markets called tianguis and finding solace in the bravado of early-90s gangster rap. Cypress Hill were Luz's favourite group; the lyrics helped her take ownership over a difficult environment.

Where I'm from, the [guns] be smoking / I'll be damned if you think I'm jokin' / Know that I'll come with the static, erratic, .45 automatic. It's is a Cypress Hill verse that was written about LA, but also reflected the mentality in Ecatepec. Luz was inspired; she started penning her own raps to Cypress Hill beats, but tried to find a way to forge her own version. "We're not chicanas [Mexican-Americans]," she explains.

As the decades passed, families have replaced cardboard and sheet metal with sturdy cement bricks and added multiple storeys to their homes. In a parallel trend, Mexico City has seen a boom of real-estate investment and a new wave of renovation. Now the city centre is filled with the hulking skeletons of new skyscrapers, and upper-middle class neighbourhoods are enjoying a surge of new construction and rehabilitation.

As infrastructure and security have improved, Mexico City has become recognised as a major hub of cultural activity. The New York Times named the capital as the top place to visit in 2016.

The situation on the periphery of the city, however, is less stable.

"Now in the parks there are drug addicts, robberies," Luz explains. "Most people go to Mexico City to work; they don't work here."

The US Chamber of Commerce in Mexico ranks Ecatepec as the second most challenging security environment for businesses in the country. According to this analysis, the suburb trails only Reynosa, Tamaulipas - the border city that serves as a base for the notorious Zeta cartel - in terms of security problems.

Ecatepec has evolved since the early 90s, but in many ways it hasn't improved. "Even though there are malls now, they don't help. It's ugly and violent, and is no place to raise kids," Luz says.

"I was proud of Ecatepec. [But now,] if I had the chance to leave, I would. I don't see a future here," she says.

After 7pm you don't go out. Not in car, walking, or in taxi

Luz Reality

A number of multinational companies have built new factories in Ecatepec, but Luz has never worked at any of them. "The shifts are long and pay is low. To work you have to go to Mexico City or find self-employment selling things at the markets," she says.

After she saw a female colleague get kidnapped, Luz left a job teaching kindergarten for a post at a small stationery store near the main plaza. While she has friends who have found jobs in IT and marketing departments in the steel and glass skyscrapers downtown, Luz herself - like nearly 60% of the women in Ecaptepec - works in the sprawling, informal economy, in a job that doesn't include benefits.

Ecatepec is now home to 1.6 million people, more than half of whom live below the poverty line. Too many aspects of life here still feel improvised and incomplete. There may police patrols on the wide throughways, but on the side streets security is scarce.

A few weeks after the concert, Luz meets up with bandmates Alix and Maya at a pizza place. The women have broken their self-imposed curfew to have a celebratory dinner to mark the end of a successful day recording a video.

In the afternoon, they revel in the activity in the bustling square, rapping to the camera in the golden afternoon light. The plaza brings together old men who have spent decades working in the fields with young parents taking their toddlers to watch the clowns, with teens on BMX bikes and skateboards. As is the case in small towns in the mountains, Ecatepec's main plaza is the centre of community life: "It's representative of Ecaptec's culture. You've got the skaters, the rappers, the B-boys," Luz explains.

As night sets in, Luz and her band-mates bounce in front of big graffiti murals down the street from Luz's house, using a friend's car headlights to illuminate the last few shots of the day. With the camera off, the swagger subsides quickly.

The pizza restaurant's windows and doors are made of heavy steel bars that look strong enough to stop a truck from crashing through. Although a few people gather at a nearby taco restaurant and a food truck still stands down the road, mostly the streets are empty.

Luz ties Ecatepec's hip-hop culture to the cholo culture popularised by Mexican-Americans in early-90s California, Cypress Hill among them. She and the rest of her generation are still wedded to these traditions of DJing, rapping, graffiti art, and breakdancing.

But she fears the neighbourhood's younger generation is more tuned in rapping as a form of aggression - notably in rap battles - and, worse, as an ancillary activity to drug dealing. The younger rappers are less interested in painting murals or organising dance competitions and far keener to embrace criminal culture.

Waiting for her pizza to arrive, Luz explains: "What I want is young people to know me. I think there are fewer rappers, fewer graffiti artists now." She sees her neighbourhood's cholo culture fading away. "It's dying," she says.

The hard-edged bravado of the new generation may be more in tune with the current reality of Ecatepec, where drug gangs recruit teens and local mob bosses have turned the neighbourhood into a depot for the retail narco trade. The crime wave has overrun the local police and created a new environment of violence and impunity.

"It's changed a lot. Before it was safe, now it's the most dangerous municipality in Mexico state. It's the worst place in Mexico for femicidios," Luz explains. On 7 August, the body of a young woman was found near a canal in the nearby town of Zumpango. The victim had been raped and tortured. "There's a lot of gender-based violence. I think it's getting worse," Luz says.

****

The pizza parlour is empty and playing loud banda music, but Alix, usually so exuberant, lowers her voice: "As a woman, when I have to go to the Río de los Remedios neighbourhood, I'm scared. I have amigas who live there. They say that girls coming out of the subway there get kidnapped and taken away in cars. They disappear."

The subway stop is next to a highway and few tarp-covered stands selling bootleg CDs. From the stairs that lead down from the train tracks, visitors can see a long expanse of cement buildings and only a few patches of green in the distance.

"It takes a lot of risk to go on the road," says Luz softly. "They've taken a lot of women."

The attacks on women have been well documented by the local tabloids. In December 2015, police discovered the body of a 20-year-old, raped, and beaten to death in an empty lot in Ecatepec. In March, 2016 one of Ecatepec's own police officers fled town after torturing and killing his own girlfriend.

Taking a moment to cut and serve slices of pizza, Luz says: "I think it's worse than ever."

She lives in a gated community with a guard who watches through a heavy metal gate. Inside, residents have built fences to separate their houses from the street, some girded with razor wire. Outside of her neighbourhood, Luz feels unsafe: "After 7pm you don't go out. Not in car, walking, or in taxi," she says. "You can go to the supermarket and the taxi driver will rob you."

Her brother was carjacked right in front of the security post at the entrance to her neighbourhood. "They put a gun on him and took everything he had, even his gum," Luz explains.

But she continues to grind, penning lyrics and recording videos. One of her new songs, I'm Still On My Feet, sums up her attitude. Over a bouncing, bass-driven beat she raps: "After everything I've been through, I'm still on my feet. I don't let myself get beaten."

She tries to stay positive but the situation in Ecatepec is heart-breaking: "[Now] it's worse. There are more femicidios than Ciudad Juárez, more kidnappings.".

In some cases, the violence is meted out by partners and ex-partners. In others it's organised crime, kidnapping women to force them to work in the sex trade. Other times random assaults are carried out by gangsters in a realm of impunity.

On 4 September, infuriated residents banded together and cornered two thieves, beating them severely before police arrived. Luz knows that many neighbourhoods now hang signs warning would-be criminals that burglars will be lynched. The vigilantism doesn't make her feel safer.

When she's home, inside her house, behind the security gate at the entrance to the street, Luz feels safer Ecatepec is her cradle, but also her prison. "It's stagnating - I think it will get worse. It's like love-hate: I was born here, but I'd like to leave. I don't want my son to grow up here."

Luz isn't the only local artist trying to draw attention to the violence in Ecatepec. A few weeks earlier, a group of activists had staged a demonstration by the murky Remedios River that cuts through the neighbourhood.

Wearing trash bags around their bodies and rope around their arms (the accoutrements routinely found tied to corpses that wash up on the river's shore), they shouted in protest: "The river has become a watery grave!" "Women are kidnapped and left here in trash bags!" "Ecatepec is a tomb!"

Meanwhile the traffic zoomed by on the freeway next to the canal, truck drivers honking as they passed, drowning out the women's voices. Then a police car stopped on the side of the highway. An officer walked up to the demonstration, took a few pictures on his cell phone, and walked back down the hill to his car.

"There are thousands of women who have disappeared. We are asking for justice!" a woman shouted. The officer didn't respond.
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Female rappers take a stand in Mexico's capital of violence against women

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On average more than one woman per week is killed in Ecatepec, on the outer edge of Mexico City. But despite living with this constant threat of brutality, local female hip-hop artists are using their music to try to change attitudes

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She is a Mexican-born rapper who was the first to come out openly about being gay.

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Niña Dioz & Li Saumet ´´La Cumbia Prohibida``( VIDEO OFICIAL)

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Niña Dioz feat. Hispana - Mezcal 🐛🥃🇲🇽  (Video Oficial)

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She's from Nuevo Leon, Mexico and has music in the reggaeton and dance-oriented pop genres

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Her most streamed song with Jason Derulo & De La Ghetto. This video currently has 686 million views.

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Sofia Reyes - 1, 2, 3 (feat. Jason Derulo & De La Ghetto) [Official Video]

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Group of women from Yucatan that use their music to shine light on gender violence in Mexico.

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JEZZY P | SUPERHÉROES | One Shot - Plumas Atómicas

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Cuando Una Mujer Avanza - (When a Woman Takes a Step Forward) A documentary film about "Mare" a female hip hop artist from Oaxaca, Mexico. Mare is...

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Born in Mexico City, Mexico, is considered one of the most influential Mexican artists. She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for success in music.

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Thalia, NATTI NATASHA - No Me Acuerdo (Official Video)

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March 19, 2020

Almost 35,000 people were murdered in 2019, Mexico's most violent year on record. The sky-high murder rate in the country made international news and called into question President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's (also known as AMLO) ability to manage an ever-changing security landscape in Mexico. In addition, activists have been mounting a sustained campaign in recent months to call attention to an epidemic within an epidemic: femicide.

The World Health Organization generally defines femicide as "intentional murder of women because they are women." While femicides represented about 10 percent of all murders in 2019, the rate has increased exponentially, growing 145 percent since 2015. (This number is also incomplete as several states in Mexico do not separately count femicides.) The increasing prevalence of femicides is a worldwide problem; even in countries with falling homicide rates, the proportion of femicides continues to rise.

Mexico began officially counting femicide data in 2012; in the same year, it had the 16th-most incidents of femicide in the world. During the 1990s and early 2000s, the murders of women in Ciudad Juárez gained national and international attention, with hundreds of women reported missing or found dead. The inaction of the Mexican government in those cases drew ire from observers both in Mexico and outside of the country, but the issue of femicide in Mexico was far from just a local issue. Approximately 10 women are killed every day in Mexico, and the rate of femicide has doubled in the last 5 years. Regionally, Mexico ranked only behind Brazil in the absolute number of femicides in 2018. Femicide is also an inherently intimate crime. More than 40 percent of femicide victims in Mexico knew their killer, and femicides are particularly brutal crimes: women are more likely than men to be killed by strangulation, drowning, suffocation, and stabbing. These astounding statistics have an impact on the perception of security in Mexico as 77 percent of Mexican women report not feeling safe.

Systemic impunity in Mexico also impacts femicides. Mexico's impunity rate has reached an astounding level; 93 percent of crimes were either not reported or not investigated in 2018, and investigation and prosecution of femicides follows that trend. Although many states have begun to classify certain homicides of women as "femicides," they often provide unreliable data and sometimes do not classify them correctly. Given the underreporting of femicides and the fact that some states still do not distinguish them as separate crimes from homicide, the number of femicides in Mexico is likely significantly higher.

Although femicide has been a problem for many years in Mexico, several high-profile cases and protests have emerged in the country over the last years. The #NiUnaMenos ("not one woman less") campaign began in Argentina in 2015 and swept through Latin America, including in Mexico. In August 2019, after the alleged rape of a teenage girl by a group of police officers north of Mexico City, protesters rallied in Mexico City in the so-called " glitter revolution." Demonstrators marched to the attorney general's office, smashing some windows. Claudia Sheinbaum, the head of government of Mexico City and a well-known AMLO ally, denounced the protestors, prompting further backlash. Eventually, Sheinbaum's office and the AMLO administration agreed to make femicide and gender-based crimes a priority, and Mexico City and 19 Mexican states declared a gender violence alert.

Two high-profile cases in February served as the catalyst for major demonstrations in Mexico. On February 9, a woman named Ingrid Escamilla was skinned and killed by her alleged partner. Just a few days later, a 7-year-old girl named Fatima Aldrighetti was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered. These cases prompted dozens of protesters to go to the Palacio Nacional in Mexico City, where they splashed red paint and graffiti on a main door. A national demonstration on March 8 in honor of International Women's Day drew thousands of protesters. The next day, tens of thousands of women took part in a nationwide walkout, disappearing for 24 hours from their schools and jobs. The largely leaderless movement, known as #UnDíaSinNosotras ("a day without us"), was a statement challenging the government's perceived indifference to the growing issue of femicides in the country.

Although lauded as a socially progressive president, AMLO's response to the issue of femicide in Mexico has been tepid at best. He generally seems indifferent or not completely aware of the severity of the situation of femicide in Mexico and of the growing frustration among Mexicans. AMLO has said he is a "humanist" and not a feminist, and in response to the nationwide strike on March 9, he accused his political opponents of inciting the strike and unrest. However, AMLO has not been completely actionless in the face of this issue. A few days after his inauguration, the Senate voted to make the crime of femicide a separate felony, and his administration released a plan to combat gender-based violence. But policy movement has been slow and mostly reliant on rhetoric and blaming previous administrations for creating a "corrupted" system that allows for femicide. While he has refused to give a concise strategy to tackle the rise of femicides, AMLO has alluded to the creation of a special prosecutor's office to investigate these crimes, and the office of the secretary of the interior held a working meeting to identify methods for mitigating femicide.

Despite some recent movement from AMLO's administration attempting to respond to the issue of femicides, the crisis remains unsolved. While it is true previous administrations in Mexico have also failed to adequately mitigate violence in general, and specifically femicides (in fact, Enrique Peña Nieto's administration oversaw the large jump in femicides), AMLO's lackluster response to serious grievances from the public has left many Mexicans frustrated. However, taking serious policy and rhetorical steps, like funding a special prosecutor's office for the investigation and prosecution of gender-based crimes, promoting early intervention domestic violence programs, and publicly supporting demonstrators and activists could help Mexico begin to take serious steps toward keeping women safe.

For decades, administrations in Mexico have largely failed to address gender-based violence and femicide. For this to change, the AMLO administration should create policies that address this issue in a serious and sustained way to provide security for all of Mexico's citizens.
Linnea Sandin is associate director and associate fellow with the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
Commentary is produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions. Accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in this publication should be understood to be solely those of the author(s).
© 2020 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. All rights reserved.

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Femicides in Mexico: Impunity and Protests

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Almost 35,000 people were murdered in 2019, Mexico's most violent year on record. The sky-high murder rate in the country made international news and called into question President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's (also known as AMLO) ability to manage an ever-changing security landscape in Mexico.

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Aquí en el Ghetto: Hip-Hop in Colombia, Cuba, and Mexico

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Aquí en el Ghetto: Hip-Hop in Colombia, Cuba, and Mexico

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"Contact was also made possible through networks of legal and illegal Mexican and Colombian migrants scattered throughout the United States. Individuals from both countries interacted with Latino and black communities in cities such as New York and Miami, for Colombia, and Los Angeles, for Mexico. On returning to their countries of origin, the migrants brought distinct elements of hip-hop culture with them."

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One of the first hip hop groups in Mexico

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This is a Mexican rap group from Nuevo Leon. They are considered to be one of the most notable hip hop groups in Mexico.

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Cartel de Santa - POLLO Y CONEJO (Video Oficial)

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His most popular song on youtube and streamed on Spotify.

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C-Kan - Esta Vida Me Encanta ft. Zimple, Don Aero (Video Oficial)

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The history of hip hop in Mexico and how it has gained more interest throughout the years.

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From The Streets To The Stage, The History Of Rap In Mexico - Zenger News

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Once considered an aggressive street genre, rap has gained acceptance among Mexicans.

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Cumbiaton which originated from Caribbean reggaeton producer El Chombo. It was then created into a signature Mexican sound at this club in Mexico City.

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She came up in Monterrey, Mexico where she found the underground hip-hop scene. She says that she was always defying cultural norms at an early age.

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"The rap scene in Mexico is currently at its largest, highlighting a culture of the urban lifestyles of Mexico."

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Top 25 Mexican Rappers: 2021’s Best Rappers from Mexico List

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Top 25 Mexican Rappers: 2021’s Best Rappers from Mexico List

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Top 25 Mexican Rappers: 2021’s Best Rappers from Mexico List

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Mexico Hip Hop: Full roster of top 25 best rappers from Mexico. 1 Santa Fe Klan 2 Gera MX 3 Natanael Cano 4 Cartel de Santa 5 Aleman 6...

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Cancún Hip Hop Fest is a destination musical experience mixing hip hop music and comedy at an all-inclusive, state-of-the-art resort in Cancún, Mexico from October 5-9, 2023.

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This was the club that DJ Marcelo Ortiz performed. The club got the attention from many up and coming singers wanting to perform in the late 90's.

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Urbano fever is gripping the music industry but global success stories for artists like J. Balvin and Bad Bunny are only part of the picture. Ortíz has history to offer. He spent 22 years at Capezzio nightclub in Puerto, Veracruz, where he, as Marcelo DJ, helped spark a local movement that continues to this day. Puerto's artists - who number in the hundreds - have stayed decidedly underground. Relegated to local fame, jarocho beats are mainly documented by obscure YouTube channels like that of Juan Antonio Solís, aka DJ Warrior.

Ortíz, handsome and soft spoken at 51, retired from DJing in 2007. He remains a pillar of Puerto's reggaeton scene. Bootleg MP3s of his early 2000s Capezzio compilations are still sold in the booths of the tianguis downtown, pounding tracklists alternating between El Chombo classics and Marcelo's favorite singles of the year from Puerto artists.

"Capezzio was a meeting place, and its public was an underground community that had no voice," he says. "Collaborators began to approach us, the kind of music that I liked to play was really resonating. It set the style in that moment. You could say, in certain ways, reggaeton was part of a cultural expression."

He drives down Puerto's Malecón, the boulevard that hugs the coastline and where the city's massive annual Carnaval celebrations happen. From here you can see the port itself, which received 2,000 African slaves a year around the turn of the 17th century. The Africans would go on to play a key role in the Mexican Revolution, aiding the forces of independence with rebellions against Spanish crown-loyal slave owners.

"We gave reggaeton our own flavor. That's what I would like the world to know." - Marcelo DJ

Given that reggaeton was pioneered by black people throughout the Caribbean and Central America, the reason why the genre first took hold in Mexico by way of Veracruz may seem obvious. Ask a Veracruz reggaeton artist to describe their sound and they will inevitably drop the word "jarocho". The term was coined to describe the culture that developed as indigenous people and Africans intermingled. Jarochos have given birth to several mestizo music forms like son jarocho, known to the rest of the world via the classic 'La Bamba'.

The Malecón is also home to the Zócalo or Macroplaza, a vast courtyard where Carnaval's main stage is erected. In the '90s, when reggaeton was still known as raggamuffin in Puerto, hopeful emcees gathered nearby in front of the port's customs building, to cypher in the very center of their city. Al fresco gatherings in the tropical heat have characterized Puerto's reggaeton history. Around 2003 and '04, the 40-plus producer, emcee, and dancer members of La Gran Familia met in Chiveria Park to freestyle and network.

Reggaeton is now one of Mexico's favorite sounds - in 2017, Spotify announced it was the country's preferred streaming genre. But many fans are unaware that it entered the country decades prior via one of its poorest states. "We were the door to the rest of the country," Marcelo says. "But we gave reggaeton our own flavor. That's what I would like the world to know."
"LET'S MAKE A MESS"
In 1980, Nancy Segura opened Nancy's Discoteque to cater to Puerto's lower middle class, a public commonly passed over by the town's other clubs. She eventually changed the name to Disco Salsa Nancy's in homage to her customers' two favorite genres, and then to Capezzio. The third moniker was a nod to the elastic dancewear line Capezio, and also a similarly named NYC nightclub that had inspired Segura and her then-husband, now-host and manager Juan Santiago.

A renaissance man who studied marine biology and toured as a disco dancer, Santiago is loud and brash, a strangely copacetic partner to the reserved Ortíz. Like Marcelo, Santiago's name is now synonymous with Veracruz reggaeton, and as a Exa 93.3 FM host, Santiago has played an important role in disseminating the sound of local artists to a wider public. A typical night at Capezzio saw Marcelo's reggaeton alternate with Santiago's comedy shows, characterized by a libertine sense of showmanship and signature jarocho impudence often directed at gleeful audience members. "A mellow, educated host?" Santiago says, laughing. "No way! Let's make a mess."

"We were criticized by a hypercritical society." - Juan Santiago

He is being interviewed in a wig-strewn dressing room while he prepares for the night's show - but not at Capezzio, which was forced to close just after Carnaval 2017. A viral cell phone video of a on-stage blowjob contest caught authorities' attention, but more importantly, nothing shielded Capezzio from the violence and corruption faced by all jarochos. In 2016, ex-governor Javier Duarte fled the country when allegations arose that he had used his post to launder billions of dollars. In 2018, a mass grave of 174 bodies made national headlines when it was discovered outside a Veracruz coastal town.

Also in 2016, Capezzio manager Daniel Múñoz was found executed alongside five other individuals in what Santiago says was a case of mistaken identity. In March 2017, police claimed they had discovered the corpses of 11 individuals, some of whom had allegedly been kidnapped while at the club. Capezzio staff holds that the venue fell victim to overzealous city administrators and anti-youth, anti-reggaeton hysteria. "We were very criticized by hypocritical society," Santiago says. There are tentative plans to re-open the 1,200 person capacity club in 2019.
MEXICO'S THE NOISE
While Capezzio's future remains unclear, jarochos attend the 700-person capacity La Factoría, which clearly carries on Capezzio's tradition of irreverence. On the night of the interview, Santiago's crew ran a rowdy variety show, replete with awful drag and a little person dressed up like a skunk. At one point, two friends volunteer for a slapping contest that ends when one's nose starts bleeding. The pair exit the stage with their prize; a caguama, or 32 ounce beer.

In Puerto, reggaeton was initially (and to an extent, still is) stereotyped as a crude and criminal genre - Marcelo refers to its initial reception in Puerto as "an uncomfortable environment". The DJ debuted at Capezzio in 1985 playing popular genres, including Reel 2 Reel and David Morales-style technotronic and the rock en español of Los Enanitos Verdes. But Marcelo became more and more intrigued by the raggamuffin releases that Segura's son Ricardo Cuevas was mailing him from New York.

By 1990, Marcelo had succeeded in turning songs like 'Tu Pum Pum' by Panama's El General and ragga artists Louchie Lou and Michie One's 'Rich Girl', precursors to the reggaeton genre, into Capezzio crowd favorites. By 1997, Puerto Rican urbano artists like Ivy Queen, Big Boy, Tempo, and Vico C were the undisputed sound of the by-then immensely popular club.

Inspired by Ortíz's selections as well as US rappers like Cypress Hill, would-be Puerto emcees started performing at quinceñearas and school recesses. A core group of vocalists formed, among them King Siniestro, The Thing aka La Mole, EREBUZ and El Skuinkle. They worked with early Puerto producers like Mr. Grillo aka DJ Style and Victor Santos, who would later go on to found influential Veracruz reggaeton group Lirika Urbana.

In those days, recording technology was hard to come by. The average monthly salary in Veracruz is $230 USD, among the lowest in Mexico. In contrast to their Puerto Rican peers, Puerto emcees have little access to United States visas - and dollars. That factor has stringently limited many Veracruz reggaeton artists' careers. Many emcees recall circling around a microphone attached to a tape deck, rewinding the cassettes over and over so that they could spit verses onto a never-ending loop of beats like that of Jamaican duo Chaka Demus and Pliers' 'Murder She Wrote'.

At some point during the late '90s, these emcees started coming to Capezzio and asking to perform on stage. "I was so impressed by all the talent," remembers Santiago. Soon, Capezzio featured multiple emcees a night, who performed in front of a crowd that was not shy to express its dislike of a subpar reggaetonero.

"Capezzio in Mexico was like The Noise in Puerto Rico," Santiago says, comparing his venue to the San Juan club that launched the careers of some of the genre's best known artists. In 2007, Santiago created the "Iluminados" competition to cut vast fields of talent down to 10 acts, who would then be invited to a professional studio to record a song for the club's in-demand compilation cassettes. It allowed Veracruz reggaetoneros to make high quality recordings of their music. "It was like being God," Santiago jokes. "Never in their lives would these poor kids be able to distribute their music on their own."
LA MAS PERRA
Facing such challenges, Puerto emcees who manage long-term careers seem particularly remarkable. At 16 years old, Alma Delia Loyola Duarte started singing reggaeton to distract herself from the grief caused by a car accident that killed her sister and niece, after whom she re-christened herself Krysstal La Mas Perra. Natural charisma and explosive flow notwithstanding, this was a bold move. It was one thing to be a woman in Capezzio's (at the time) all-male contests, but Krysstal is also a butch lesbian who has never tried to hide the fact.

"My sexual preference made it so that I had to work pretty hard," Krysstal says. "It was like, 'Oh no, a lesbian, gross.' But I kept at it, and I had people like Juan Santiago who have always supported me." Off the strength of solo singles like 'Pukitim' and 'Solo Para Mi' (both collaborations with Marcelo's producer son Rambon), Krysstal has become one of Puerto's most beloved reggaeton singers. Other women in the scene were shocked to discover that despite Krysstal's tough exterior, she was eager to collaborate with other female vocalists. Puerto reggaetonera Skarlett recalls being paired with Krysstal onstage one night at Capezzio. "You should have seen it!" she says. "Everyone thought we were going to rivals but no!" The two later recorded a popular single and later formed a group, both named Potencia Rara.

"People who haven't come out of the closet can say, 'OK, she's not ashamed - what about me?'" - Krysstal La Mas Perra

Krysstal's visibility has also had real effects on other queer people. "People who haven't come out of the closet can see her sing and say, 'OK, she's not ashamed - what about me?'" says her partner Nayelli Solis Presa. Krysstal's success paved the wave for other local female vocalists like Scarlett, Candy Baby, and Angeles.

In 2004, Krysstal briefly joined Puerto supergroup La Dinastía. Capezzio was at its prime, having hosted two concerts of Hector Y Tito, the first major reggaeton act to play Mexico. More high profile bookings at the club followed, including Nicky Jam and Sir Speedy. Their success proved that Mexico was a ready audience for the reggaeton industry that would enter its most hype era the next year with the release of 'Gasolina'.

One night at the club, five local emcees - Baby King, Magaña, Akira, Krysstal, and Evhan - were broke and thirsty. In hopes of scoring free drinks, they made up a story that they had written a Capezzio tribute song. Baby King, whose powerful rasp offers the closest thing Puerto has to a signature sound besides jarocho lexicon, freestyled its hook to Segura's son Roman Cuevas, "Es Capezzio, la casa de la raza ..."

Cuevas invited the five to a round, and then to record the track, becoming the group's manager. Capezzio crowds loved the song's opening lines, "we're not a trend, we're a necessity," which seemed to reflect the genre's growing local importance. La Dinastía became Capezzio's house crew. After winning a local Exa talent search, the group recorded its hit 'Vaquero' - to this day, one of the best-known reggaeton tracks to come out of Puerto - and embarked on a period of national fame.

The video for 2018's 'Los Que Mas Le Meten' - directed by ace Puerto videographer and music producer Alexander Nash - gives a sense of Puerto's enduring love for La Dinastía, now a duo comprised of Magaña and Baby King. "There was like 50 motorcycles, 50 cars, like 500 people," remembers Mexico City DJ Sueño Dream Lion, who attended the shoot with one of the song's featured artists, rapper Big Metra. "Reggaeton is a totally distinct culture in Veracruz. It's alive!"

"If we had papers, we could do much more." - Magaña

"A lot of people have learned about our movement," says Magaña. "We're proud about that. We've been able to open the doors for many people." But he's also had to turn down festival opportunities in the States because of immigration limitations. "If we had papers, we could do much more."
THE JAROCHO TOUCH
The ride with Marcelo ends at the home of his son Rambon, a full-time radio and reggaeton producer who won the Iluminados competition in 2008 and who is invested in the future of Veracruz reggaeton. Rambon spent his adolescence in Capezzio sipping sodas and watching his dad mix, but his approach to music has been markedly different than that of Marcelo, who maintained a Monday to Friday communications company job throughout his DJ glory days.

When he was 14, Marcelo bought Rambon his first Yamada console, and Rambon started producing rappers with Fruity Loops 5. It's clear that the second generation artist sees this as a process of creative justice. "Veracruz is the birthplace of reggaeton in Mexico," he says. "That's a fact."

"Veracruz has enough talent to export music to the whole world." - Rambon

Rambon knows the challenges that more recent Puerto artists like Cooper Y Georgy, Kentow, and Honduran transplant Divey face in being heard. He's learned that Mexican bookers won't pay big fees to national reggaeton acts, opting to spend the money on banda groups or international stars. "To be real with you, Veracruz has enough talent to export music to the whole world," he says. "We've got singers, rappers, writers, video directors, producers, dancers, DJs, anything you'd need to be a force on a worldwide level, to represent Mexico. But it's a question of economic support. That's what holds up production here."

True too, big-name urbano stars are more likely to appropriate Mexican vibes than tap the country's artists to collaborate. Check J. Balvin's 'Bobo' video (shot in Mexico City) or Puerto Rican artist Dalmata's mariachi-spliced 'Pasarela' for examples. Even on their home turf, Puerto emcees are rarely afforded the respect such a legacy should afford. On the final night of 2019's Carnaval celebrations in the Macroplaza, La Dinastia were somehow bumped from their rightful spot opening for headliner Balvin by the dubious talents of 'Acapulco Shore' TV personality cum reggaetonero Jawy Méndez. The legendary duo's stage show - which featured son jarocho maestros plucking on the region's famed arpas [harps] and Kentow delivering his 2014 hit 'Vampira' - was delayed until well after midnight. It was still a treat for the local crowds that roared their lyrics back over the sound of the Gulf of Mexico waves.

Perhaps that imbalance can be corrected. With global reggaeton lust running high, and Mexican corrido culture next to break on pop culture's consciousness (if Bad Bunny's recent feature on Rancho Humilde star Natanael Cano's 'El Diablo' is any indicator), it's feasible that at some point, interest could turn to perreo's Veracruz chapter. Last year, boricua emcee Sir Speedy guested on the Rambon-produced old school single 'Mama Mia' released through La Dinastía's Sangre Pirata label, a definite victory for the jarocho reggaeton legends. Rambon continues to link Veracruz talent with high quality music and video production through his project Los Gallos, releasing resulting singles in compilations. That kind of community-think is something he learned from his dad, who looked for ways to amplify local artists. But even if jarocho reggaetoneros never achieve the mainstream success of international peers, the Malecón has long since earned a berth in the genre's history books.
Caitlin Donohue is a freelance writer who lives in Mexico City. Find her on Twitter. Enrique Favela is a photographer based in Veracruz.
A beginner's guide to the history and hybridity of reggaeton

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El Malecón: The birth of Mexican reggaeton and the Veracruz club that became its epicenter

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Urbano fever is gripping the music industry but global success stories for artists like J. Balvin and Bad Bunny are only part of the picture. Ortíz has history to offer. He spent 22 years at Capezzio nightclub in Puerto, Veracruz, where he, as Marcelo DJ, helped spark a local movement that continues to this day.

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Talks about the origin of reggaeton and the several different cities that have been influenced by reggaeton from CDMX to Monterrey.

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It's 2020, and in Mexico, reggaetón is queen. The music echoes through a sizable percentage of the country's nightclubs, buses, appliance stores and doctor's waiting rooms. Mexico counts as a major market for reggaetón's international stars, but for all its history in the genre, the country's artists rarely break internationally.

Listen to the Candela Music crew's "Si Baja" to catch the vibe of Mexican radio reggaetón. The music is rarely overproduced, a streamlined call to party that communicates a certain bounce quotient in the country's reigning clubs. In the CDMX metropolitan area alone those include Coalcalco's 8trece, Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl's Castillo del Abuelo and Atizapan's Kuka Bar. Within the central CDMX neighborhoods lies Zona Rosa's Híbrido and the nearby, drag-hosted Rico Club that has helped open up a mega-market of LGBTQ-oriented perreo palaces.

Mexico has played a role in reggaetón's global panorama for decades. Veracruz emcees were battling at Puerto's Club Capezzio in the late '90s, and in Mexico City, Valle de Aragón's Bunny and Ciudad Neza's Tha Bounce fostered massive scenes. The dembow-cumbia fusion known as cumbiaton may have been originated by the Caribbean reggaetón stylings of Panamanian producer El Chombo, but it developed into a signature Mexican sound at Ciudad Neza club Stratus.

The music - as in many of reggaetón's early homes - was perceived by many law enforcement officials as a soundtrack to violence and drug use. Reggaetón fans were subject to police abuse that culminated in the 2008 tragedy in Mexico City club New's Divine. 13 young reggaetón fans suffocated when police raided the club over its supposed sale of alcohol to minors. It resulted in the temporary death of the Mexico City reggaetón scene.

But its volume has been recovered, and then some.

A rising generation of Mexico's pop-leaning reggaetón producers and vocalists get radio airtime and play major festivals, while cumbiaton veterans and newcomers continue to create uniquely Mexican perreos from CDMX to Monterrey. reggaetón continues to diffuse into other genres as well. The CDMX-based NAAFI collective will soon celebrate a decade of electro-reggaetón wildstyle that opened the door to a generation of techno perreo nightlife and other hybrids.

Here's an incomplete rundown of the country's most influential performers and producers.

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11 Acts That Define the Sound of Reggaetón Mexicano

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It's 2020, and in Mexico, reggaetón is queen. The music echoes through a sizable percentage of the country's nightclubs, buses, appliance stores and doctor's waiting rooms. Mexico counts as a major market for reggaetón's international stars, but for all its history in the genre, the country's artists rarely break internationally.

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Mexico: Indigenous Women Fight Femicide With Hip Hop - PopularResistance.Org

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By Staff of Tele Sur - Through music they are denouncing the stealing of their lands and violence against women. Indigenous women arrived in Mexico City to present their work defending their territory and to denounce femicides inside and outside their communities, through hip-hop.

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Women in Mexico wrote a song turned anthem to bring more attention to femicide as a close friend of theirs was kidnapped and killed

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MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The kidnapping and murder of Vivir Quintana's close friend by a man in northern Mexico was just one more femicide among thousands in the country over the past decade, but it forever transformed the songwriter's life.

The 36-year-old from Coahuila state has written a song that is shaping into an anthem for Mexico's growing outcry over the killings of women, channeling anger along with hope for justice.

"Everything changed in my perception of the world, in seeing that we were possible victims," Quintana said, describing how the killing of her friend inspired "Song Without Fear."

It demands an end to the murder of women, an issue that has spurred protests across Mexico, where femicides have risen 137% in the last five years and recent cases have drawn outrage for their brutality.

Quintana will perform the song at Mexico City's massive public square on Saturday evening with 40 other women and Chilean singer Mon Laferte, then reprise the tune at Sunday's march for International Women's Day, handing out song lyrics to encourage other voices to join.

At a recent rehearsal, Quintana strummed an acoustic guitar and belted in a deep voice: "At every minute of every week, they steal friends from us, they kill sisters. They destroy their bodies, they disappear them. Don't forget their names, please, Mister President."

The call is not only for Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, whom critics say is dismissive toward protests over gender violence, but for leaders across Latin America to prioritize the issue, Quintana said.

The commonplace names that punctuate the lyrics - Claudia, Esther, Teresa, Ingrid, Fabiola and Valeria - represent how typical femicide is across Mexico, Quintana said. She chose them by asking friends to suggest favorite female names and then searching for them online. They all showed up as women who disappeared or were murdered.

A video of the song notched more than 12,000 views within hours of being posted online on Saturday, and Quintana hopes protesters will adopt it as their own. She also hopes its popularity will one day fade.

"We want it to be a song that hopefully won't stick around, that won't become popular every March 8," she said.

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'Don't forget their names': Women in Mexico sing anthem protesting femicides

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MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The kidnapping and murder of Vivir Quintana's close friend by a man in northern Mexico was just one more femicide among thousands in the country over the past decade, but it forever transformed the songwriter's life.

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The Routledge Companion to Gender, Sex and Latin American Culture

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The Routledge Companion to Gender, Sex and Latin American Culture

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"Hip hop developed in Latin America as a common youth language of societal ills; women in Latin America adapted that language to develop regional feminism and form new female networks."

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The Routledge Companion to Gender, Sex and Latin American Culture is the first comprehensive volume to explore the intersections between gender, sexuality, and the creation, consumption, and interpretation of popular culture in the Américas.

The chapters seek to enrich our understanding of the role of pop culture in the everyday lives of its creators and consumers, primarily in the 20th and 21st centuries. They reveal how popular culture expresses the historical, social, cultural, and political commonalities that have shaped the lives of peoples that make up the Américas, and also highlight how pop culture can conform to and solidify existing social hierarchies, whilst on other occasions contest and resist the status quo. Front and center in this collection are issues of gender and sexuality, making visible the ways in which subjects who inhabit intersectional identities (sex, gender, race, class) are "othered", as well as demonstrating how these same subjects can, and do, use pop-cultural phenomena in self-affirmative and progressively transformative ways. Topics covered in this volume include TV, film, pop and performance art, hip-hop, dance, slam poetry, gender-fluid religious ritual, theater, stand-up comedy, graffiti, videogames, photography, graphic arts, sports spectacles, comic books, sci-fi and other genre novels, lotería card games, news, web, and digital media.

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The Routledge Companion to Gender, Sex and Latin American Culture

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The Routledge Companion to Gender, Sex and Latin American Culture is the first comprehensive volume to explore the intersections between gender, sexuality, and the creation, consumption, and interpretation of popular culture in the Américas. The chapters seek to enrich our understanding of the role of pop culture in the everyday lives of its creators and consumers, primarily in the 20th and 21st centuries.