Natanael Cano Opens His Vol. 1 Tour With the Song He Once Said Could Get Him Killed

Natanael Cano opened his Vol. 1 tour with two consecutive nights in one of Mexico City’s largest stadiums, 65,000 people deep, a band of more than a dozen musicians behind him: trombones, trumpets, requinto. The scale is the argument. Corridos tumbados moved from Sonora to a mass format in a few years, and Cano, 25, is the artist who pushed it furthest into the mainstream.

The setlist carried more weight than the production. In August 2024, on the same stage, Cano performed “Cuerno Azulado” during a show broadcast across the Americas on Disney+, with dancers in military-style tactical vests designed by Adidas. Weeks earlier, on stage in Sonora, he had told the crowd the song could cost him his life. Its verses describe a bought government and cocaine moved in bulk, and they name the Culiacanazo: 17 October 2019, when the Sinaloa Cartel shut down Culiacán and forced the state to release Ovidio Guzmán hours after his arrest.

This time he played it twice. No broadcast, no tactical gear, just jeans and western shirts. Backstage, with his brass section rehearsing through the wall, he was quiet and unhurried, and said something small about the audience: with in-ears in, he had never really heard them. He has started taking them out.