La Santa Grifa
Formed in 2013 around Yusak, Reghoz, and Centavo out of the Santa Anita barrio, La Santa Grifa built a cult following in Mexican hip-hop on gritty, weed-soaked street narratives like their breakout "Seguiré Fumando." The lineup has weathered real tragedy — member Tolderck disappeared in 2015 and was memorialized in song, and founding member Centavo died unexpectedly decades later — but the group's raw, unpolished delivery has kept them a reference point for younger Mexican rap and corridos-adjacent artists alike, including a 2025 feature with rising corridos star Chino Pacas.
Coverage of La Santa Grifa's origins describes the group as "inspired originally by the sound of Control Machete," the Monterrey crew that pioneered blunt, Spanish-language hardcore rap in the mid-1990s.
listen forControl Machete's chest-out delivery over stripped-down boom-bap on "Sí Señor" is the same unpolished, straight-off-the-block voice La Santa Grifa uses on "Fumando Mota" — no melodic hook softening it, just bars over a heavy loop.
The same coverage names Cartel de Santa as a co-founding reference point for La Santa Grifa's sound — both groups work the same Nuevo León-rooted, weed-and-street-life gangsta-rap lane that Cartel de Santa staked out nationally with "Cannabis" in 2002.
listen forThe matter-of-fact, half-sung hook riding a heavy loop that Cartel de Santa uses on "Cannabis" reappears in the sing-song menace of La Santa Grifa's own drug-anthem, "Un Santo Grifo Nunca Muere."