Los Tucanes de Tijuana
photo: lostucanesdetijuana (own work) · cc by-sa 4.0 ↗Founded in Tijuana in 1987 by bajo sexto player and songwriter Mario Quintero Lara alongside three fellow Sinaloa transplants, Los Tucanes de Tijuana pioneered a rougher, brass-heavy Pacific take on norteño and became one of modern narcocorrido's defining acts, dedicating early songs to Sinaloa cartel figures like Héctor "El Güero" Palma. With hits like "La Chona" and "Mis Tres Animales" they placed six albums on Billboard's Top Latin chart simultaneously in 1996–97, and have since sold more than 25 million records and won a Latin Grammy.
Quintero's uncle Mariano Quintero, bajo sexto player in Los Incomparables de Tijuana, gave a teenage Quintero his first bajo sexto and personally coached him on song structure and rhyme — the corrido-writing toolkit Quintero has used across his catalog, described in his own words as hands-on family mentorship rather than a distant influence.
listen forListen for the same plainspoken, campesino-plain narrative delivery and stripped bajo sexto/accordion interplay running from Incomparables' 'El Número Uno' straight into the Tucanes' own early corrido 'Mi Ex' — the storytelling cadence barely changes even where the Tucanes later add rowdier brass elsewhere in their catalog.