MC Enfermo is a rapper from Sinaloa, the home state of one of Mexico’s fiercest drug cartels.

But unlike other local musicians, MC Enfermo doesn’t glorify the bad guys. Instead, he raps about why the drug culture is bad for young people in his community.

Enfermo has watched dozens of his own friends get recruited by the cartels.

One of those friends was killed last year.

He’s tired of people thinking that Culiacán’s young people are just fodder for the drug war.

Enfermo says, “I think they see Culiacán like an AK-47 and we’re the bullets. They think the state is just full of problems and conflicts. But within the same society, people also work honestly, and they sweat to make a buck.”