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A new web series from Louisiana Public Broadcasting called Ritual explores the meaning and history of various cultural rituals celebrated and performed across the American South.
Tarriona "Tank" Ball of the New Orleans band Tank and the Bangas (the group that won NPR's Tiny Desk Contest in 2017) hosts the series, and one of the episodes focuses on the history of Tejano corridos – ballads of the Texas-Mexico border.
The songs often told stories of important figures of the mid- to late-1800s and their struggles against Anglo/Texian figures along the border. But now, new corridos are being written about modern figures from politics or culture, such as Selena.
To learn more about the history and significance of corridos, Houston Matters producer Michael Hagerty talked with Ball and Juan Tejeda, an educator and activist who's a corrido performer himself.
