A Mexican musician uses a contentious genre to sing of women imprisoned for killing their abusers

MEXICO CITY — Two days before her new album was launched, musical icon Vivir Quintana was behind barbed wire at a women's prison in Mexico. The singer had spent the past 10 years visiting women incarcerated after defending themselves and, in doing so, killing their abusers.

Their stories became part of ''Cosas que Sorprenden a la Audiencia'' (Things that Surprise the Audience), Quintana's latest album, released Thursday.

It tells the story of 10 such women but in a first, Quintana does it through ''corridos,'' a typically male-dominated and controversial Mexican music genre that's soared into the spotlight in recent years.

The album, Quintana explained, was born out of her desire to dive into the more complicated aspects of gender-based violence.

''This album has a different heart,'' Quintana, 40, said in an interview, donning bright red boots, her signature streak of gray slicing through her black hair. ''This album wasn't made to sell, it's to change minds.''

'So many times I didn't defend myself'

The songs are meant to raise awareness about soaring levels of violence against women across Latin America — human rights groups estimate that an average of 10 women are killed in Mexico every day — and a justice system that many believe protects abusers and silences women's voices.

In many cases, women like the ones in Quintana's corridos are charged with ''excessive legitimate self-defense," charges that have fueled outrage among many in Mexico.

''So many times I feared for my life. So many times I didn't defend myself,'' Quintana crooned, cradling her guitar as her booming voice echoed through the halls of her record label building on Wednesday. ''Now I live locked up in a prison, and I feel more free than I did in my own home.''

Amplifying women's voices has been a hallmark of Quintana's career, and rocketed her to fame in Mexico and beyond.

In 2020, her ''Canción Sin Miedo'' (Song Without Fear) became an anthem for Mexico's Women's Day march and the feminist movement in Latin America.

In 2022, she co-wrote a melancholy hymn about healing and freedom for the album of the Black Panther sequel. And last year, she was recognized at the Latin Grammys as one of four Leading Ladies of Entertainment.

A cultural reckoning

Quintana's new music goes further. She uses ''corridos,'' a type of northern Mexican ballads that has seen both an international renaissance and a backlash, with critics claiming that ''narco corridos'' — songs that glorify cartel violence and use misogynistic lyrics – have dominated the form.

The topic has grown so heated that the United States even revoked the visas of members of one band who projected the face of a drug cartel boss onto a large screen during a performance.

Instead of banning the corridos as a growing number of Mexican states have done, the country's first woman president, Claudia Sheinbaum, has proposed that the government promote a new style of corridos that avoid glorifying violence and discrimination against women.

''We're not banning a musical genre; that would be absurd," Sheinbaum said recently. "What we're proposing is that the lyrics not glorify drugs, violence, violence against women or viewing women as a sexual object.''

‘I didn't want to die by his hands'

Quintana's corridos turn the genre on its head, paying tribute not to violence or criminals, but to women who have been criminalized for defending themselves.

The first song on her album, ''Era Él o Era Yo (It Was Either Him or Me) tells the story of Roxana Ruiz, a Mexican woman sentenced to six years for killing a man who was raping her and threatened to kill her in 2021.

''This isn't justice,'' Ruiz said after the court ruling. ''Remember, I am the one who was sexually assaulted by that man, and after he died because I defended myself … because I didn't want to die by his hands.''

Mexican prosecutors later withdrew the case against her after a countrywide outcry.

One song tells of a 14-year-old girl in the southern state of Tabasco who killed her father when he was abusing her mother. Another tells of Yakiri Rubio, who was kidnapped by two men, taken to a hotel and raped. After killing one of the men, she was taken to prison and charged with "homicide by excessive legitimate self-defense."

With each song, Quintana would follow local news reports, interview the women in prisons and spend time with their families, hoping to capture their personalities — and not just the violent act that transformed their lives.

''It's something painful that the state tells you that if you defend yourself, we're going to punish you,'' Quintana said. ''It's like up until what point do we care about women's life?''

Shifting the conversation

Quintana's inspiration stemmed from a childhood memory of a classic corrido she first heard at the age of 5, played at parties and on the radio in her native northern Mexican state of Coahuila.

The ballad is about a woman named Rosita Alvírez, violently killed when she tried to go out to dance. Later, when she was 15, Quintana's best friend was murdered in a femicide, the slaying of women because of their gender. It was then that the brutality of the lyrics sank in.

Quintana's album seeks to shift the tone of the corridos to capture the harsh realities Mexican women face, she said, and explore ongoing violence against women and other kinds of ''machismo'' with nuance.

Her purpose, she added, is to lift up survivors of gender violence and to provide a point of connection for incarcerated women like those in her ballads.

''They tell these women, you defended yourself, you killed someone and you're in prison, you don't have the right to feel joy, enjoy life, you don't have the right to anything,'' Quintana said.

''But it's important to dance to these things, no?" she added. "Because people have to understand that they have the right to music, the right to art, and more than anything, the right to beauty.''