Abstract
This article explores agency as an ability to act and exert power creatively when failure implies literal death. It draws on interviews with an ex‐narco and rappers who willingly accept narco‐commissions in 2010s Tamaulipas, Mexico, a context where precarity and necropolitical logics prevail. It asserts that many rappers exert power creatively, despite the risks. Rappers shape narco‐aesthetics by determining the lyrical and sonic elements of songs; draw on experiences of narco‐life to contribute to narco‐ethics; and mould narco‐masculinities by encouraging listeners to stay firm. It proposes that prevalent discursive Us–Them dichotomies facilitate Othering and stigmatisation of actors in the narco‐world, and serve to accentuate narco‐power.
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