Gritos Banditos

It's a Wednesday night at 11, and the Del Rio is popping.

A young man, loosened up from earlier drinking at the nearby Oasis, grabs a woman, and they go reeling over the dance floor. He holds the back of her long sweater away from her body like a cape for an invisible bull. Other couples join them, their dances less tequila-fueled and more precise, feet moving together as though connected by strings.

Four female bartenders move fluidly in their own dance, pouring shots, squeezing limes, twisting bottle caps.

Years ago, the dark dive at 2934 Southwest Boulevard was a biker bar called the Fun Spot. Now the clientele is nearly 100 percent Hispanic — but wildly diverse: Middle-aged office workers share the bar with tough guys, drag queens and service-industry employees who come to dance after their shifts.

The Del Rio's reputation is that it's a drug dealer's hangout. The reality is that it's loud; when live acts are playing, the sound system could serve a venue twice its size. Drumbeats sound like gunshots.

And on many Wednesday nights, it's a second home to one of the area's most popular local bands.

For seven years now, Mafia Norteña has played the norteña music of the farmers, ranchers and cowboys in Mexico's northern states of Durango, Chihuahua, Zacatecas and Sinaloa.

Brothers Valentin and Jose Zaragoza play drums and bass, respectively. They were born in Kansas City, Missouri. Juan Porras, the band's accordion player and manager, was born in Kansas City, Kansas. The guitarist, singer and songwriter, Mario Davila, is from Durango, Mexico.

At the insistence of their San Antonio, Texas, label, Joey Records, Mafia Norteña's four albums have included a range of music meant to appeal to a wide audience: fast music that is good for dancing, called cumbia; slow, romantic love songs; and covers of songs by bands such as Los Tigres del Norte, one of California's best-known Mexican bands, whose tour swung through Kansas City in September.

But for a core group of fans, Mafia Norteña is known for its narcocorridos, songs that glorify the dangerous lives of drug traffickers who make it rich while dodging the law. Think of it as Mexican gangsta rap, but set to the cheerful, accordion-laced oompa-oompa of traditional norteña.

The Rio's jukebox is loaded with narcocorridos. Owners Estela Cabral and her son, Art, take some credit for Mafia Norteña's popularity. The band bought its first bus with money earned from gigs at the Rio.

"Mafia, the first time they ever played was in my bar," Art Cabral boasts. "Everybody got their start at the Del Rio, everybody. We been here eight years." Even down in Mexico, Cabral says, people talk about the Del Rio. "Anybody who's anybody in that type of business," he says, has been to his club. "That's where they hang out and spend their money."

That type of business means the drug business. Art Cabral isn't afraid to admit that some shifty characters hang out at his establishment. "The Del Rio has been under surveillance for years, just from all the people that go there," he says. "There's tons of people who hung out there that are in jail now — probably 100 people that I've known in the past few years."

These days, the place is tame compared with its first wild years, when Cabral had to break up fistfights and tell some troublemakers to stay away. The only time he needs to employ a security company is on Saturday nights. What his customers do to earn their cash when they're not in the bar is outside his control.

"Some are shady, or have been, and always will be," Cabral says. "As long as they eat and drink, that's all I care about. And pay their tab."

Come to the Del Rio once and you'll be greeted by cold looks from behind heavy eyeliner. Come twice and you'll be treated like one of Estela's grandchildren.

A trio of women with suspiciously large Adam's apples troops past the Del Rio's ear-splitting speakers, heading for the ladies' room to preen in front of smudged mirrors. Meanwhile, in a loungy, neon-lit corner, a woman refuses to give her number to a lean cowboy in boots — only to give it to his friend a minute later. The rejected cowboy grabs her hand anyway and drags her off for one last dance.

Though the Del Rio is basically just a neighborhood bar, its dangerous reputation gives it an edge. The tough guys who hang out here have reputations, too.

At least they wish they did. Sometimes, a reputation can use a little poetic embellishment. That's when Mario Davila's cell phone rings. Davila, Mafia Norteña's songwriter and Mexico-born member, is a mustachioed guy in his thirties with a demeanor that seems standoffish at first. People who don't know him, he says, probably think he's a mamón, an asshole. He understands English but pretends not to when it suits him.

"Narcocorridos cause a lot of controversy in Mexico," Davila says in Spanish. Porras, the manager, translates.

"The government tells radio stations in Mexico not to play them.... They don't want it [the music] to have too much glamour. [Mexican President] Vicente Fox two or three years ago said that. Here, we have freedom of opinion. There are a lot more freedoms we have. A corrido is a story. It's not always about drugs. Sometimes it's about someone dying. It could be about a horse."