A Mexican musician uses a contentious genre to sing of women imprisoned
for killing their abusers
[April 25, 2025]
By MEGAN JANETSKY and FERNANDA PESCE
MEXICO CITY (AP) — 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.
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Mexican corridos singer Vivir Quintana performs her new album, about
violence against women, in Mexico City, Thursday, April 24, 2025.
(AP Photo/Aurea Del Rosario)
 “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.”
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