There’s beef brewing in regional Mexican music between classic crooner Pepe Aguilar and rising star Natanael Cano. Aguilar’s recent comments on the emerging corridos tumbados scene rubbed Cano the wrong way. Both artists had some choice words to say about each other.
Aguilar’s original comments stem from an interview he did with El Escorpión Dorado back in February. “I’m traumatized by music right now because you don’t have to be a musician to make music nowadays,” he said in Spanish. Then El Escorpión called corridos tumbados “sh*tty” and asked for his guest’s opinion on the genre. “It’s part of the evolution of the music and the evolution of the species,” Aguilar joked. He reiterated that there were more true musicians to look up to in his childhood. Aguilar described today’s music as mediocre, cheap, and p*nche.
It was those words that set off Cano, who is leading the corridos tumbados movement. “Everyone has different tastes,” the 19-year-old singer said in Spanish on Instagram Live. “You could’ve just said that you don’t like the music, moved on, and people would’ve respected that, but you had to use the sh*ttiest words that exist.” He also flipped off the camera as a message to El Escorpión. After calling Aguilar an animal and p*ndejo, Cano added, “My mom doesn’t even like you.”
Aguilar responded the same day to Cano’s comments in video post on Instagram. He reaffirmed his thoughts about the today’s music being p*nche, but clarified that he wasn’t referring to regional Mexican music in any way. “What low self-esteem you have to think I was talking about you,” Aguilar said in Spanish. “With all respect, I don’t even know who you are. God help you even if you are rude. If you think I was referring to your music in that way then you are the one with the problem.”
Like with any beef, Aguilar and Cano are lighting up social media from the controversy. “I don’t know if I should be happy to be trending at No. 1 on Twitter in Mexico (No. 6 in the U.S.) or taken aback that some people thought I was broken,” Aguilar wrote on Twitter in Spanish with sunglasses emojis, laughing emojis, and the hashtag #VivanLosCorridosTumbados.
Whatever Aguilar was referring to, it’s generally never a good look when an established musical artist feels the need to show their age by trying (and failing) to dunk on a relevant, youth-led genre or sound.