Singer Alfredo Rios, better known as the controversial El Komander, was one of the most popular performers in the banda style of narcocorridos—ballads that mythologized Mexico's drug lords. He burst onto the scene in 2009 with El Katch, an album that highlighted his flamboyant vocals and grisly song lyrics. El Komander soon became a major concert draw, but a wave of bad press involving narcocorrido singers—including several murders—led him to briefly retire from singing violent songs. The ban was short-lived, and El Komander returned to the material on which he'd made his fame.