Kumbia Kings “Pachuco”: The Song and Its History

No documented iPod commercial

No Apple commercial using "Pachuco" by A.B. Quintanilla y Los Kumbia Kings has been documented. Overviews of iPod advertising do not list it, and reference articles on the song and the band mention no Apple use. What follows is the history of the song itself.

A 1991 original from Mexico City

"Pachuco" was first recorded by Maldita Vecindad, a rock en español band formed in Mexico City in 1985, for its second album, El Circo (1991), which sold more than 800,000 copies. The song draws on the pachucos, the zoot-suited Chicano youth counterculture that began in El Paso in the late 1930s and developed further in Los Angeles, and it samples the comedian Tin Tan, whose screen character was a pachuco.

The Kumbia Kings version

The Kumbia Kings, founded in Corpus Christi, Texas, by A.B. Quintanilla III, older brother of the singer Selena, and Cruz Martínez, recorded a cumbia arrangement in the studio. Released as a single on 1 March 2006, with lead vocals by Fernando "Nando" Domínguez, it was the only non-live track on Kumbia Kings Live, a CD and DVD recorded at Arena Monterrey on 30 April 2005 and issued by EMI Latin in April 2006. The single peaked at No. 28 on Billboard's Regional Mexican chart and was the group's last before it broke up in 2006. Kumbia Kings Live won the 2006 Latin Grammy for Best Tropical Regional Mexican Album, and Quintanilla went on to lead a new group, Kumbia All Starz.

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