Anyone who watched Breaking Bad gave at least a little bit of serious thought to joining a Mexican drug cartel. But where Hollywood does a pretty impressive job of glorifying criminals, it hasn't got shit on Mexico's utterly insane cartel culture. There, real-life kingpins become pop culture stars with their own media empires, complete with merchandise and youth fashion trends.

6 Drug Dealers Have Over-the-Top Musical Tributes Written About Them

Cinedigm

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

Before the invention of cups tied to long strings, mass communication relied on oral tradition. Music was used to educate people, tell tales of olden heroes, and remind everyone that smelling his dick is a great way to tell if your man is cheating. In that spirit of musical folklore, narcocorridos (drug ballads) are hugely popular in Mexico.

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

It's not hard to see the appeal for dealers. Famous performers singing hyperbolic songs about your exploits so you'll live on forever in musical infamy? If our exploits weren't limited to surfing the Internet and eating Hot Pockets, we'd be all over that.

Songs range from your typical pieces of bravado ("The Boss of Bosses," "The Badass of Badasses") to claims that sound like they were taken from fantasy novels ("The Lord of the Skies") to brags that probably sounded better in their heads ("The Man With the Hummer"). What they all have in common are lyrics that glorify crime and awesomely cheesy music videos featuring people strutting around in cowboy hats, more guns than a shooting range, and effects stolen from MTV circa 1987. If you didn't realize they were singing about dismembering and boiling people alive, it would be downright adorable.

Cinedigm

We've always been suckers for the sweet, melancholic sound of the bazooka.

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

Lyrics like ...

With an AK-47 and a bazooka on my shoulder

Cross my path and I'll chop your head off

We're bloodthirsty, crazy, and we like to kill

... are no different from your typical gangster rap or that weird phase Leonard Cohen went through, but it gets worrying when you learn that many of these songs are inspired by real events. And the performers aren't underground folk artists like your college roommate -- this is a multimillion-dollar business where albums go platinum, major concert venues are sold out, and groups get nominated for Grammys while looking like this: