Delinquent Habits

Put "Tres Delinquentes" on anywhere and the trumpet does the rest. That fanfare alone is enough to fill your head with desert, hats and Clint Eastwood narrowing his eyes. It is one of the most recognisable hooks in nineties hip hop, and behind it lies a story far better than the song itself: that of a border sound passed from hand to hand, each hand turning it into something else. The thread is worth following from the beginning, because it is a beautiful genealogy.

First turn: a man in a Los Angeles garage

The trumpet is not from an Italian film. It comes from "The Lonely Bull", recorded in 1962 by Herb Alpert and his Tijuana Brass. And "The Lonely Bull" is not what it seems either: it is not a mariachi band. It is Herb Alpert, a trumpeter from Los Angeles, shut in his own garage, recording his trumpet over itself again and again until it simulated a whole group. A Californian musician manufacturing, by sheer overdub, a Mexican sound that had nobody in it but him.

To release it, he founded a label with a partner. That label is A&M Records, one of the biggest of the century. Which means the riff was born of one man imitating the border in his garage, and along the way it gave birth to an empire.

Second turn: three from Norwalk

Thirty-four years later, in 1996, three men from Norwalk — in Los Angeles County — did exactly what Alpert had done: they took a border sound and gave it back transformed. Ives Irie, Kemo the Blaxican — Black and Mexican, the mixture written into the name — and O.G. Style, who also produced. Chicanos rapping in Spanglish over that trumpet, with all the ease of people picking up something that was always theirs.

And here something is worth clearing up, because it gets told as though it were a crime, and it is not. That sample is licensed and paid for. The songwriting credits of "Tres Delinquentes" carry four names: the three in the group and Solomon Lachoff, which is the real name of Sol Lake, the composer of "The Lonely Bull". The original writer appears as a co-author. There was no lawsuit and no fight: there was a credit, which is the clean, grown-up way of borrowing. Nobody stole anything from anybody. They asked, they paid, and it was signed.

While we are here, the myth: Ennio Morricone has nothing to do with it and never did. The confusion comes from the American press of the nineties, which described the group's sound as "spaghetti western meets West Coast hip hop". From there to attaching Morricone's name was one short step, and somebody took it. But there is nothing Italian in "Tres Delinquentes". There are two generations of Angelenos playing with the same border.

The hit, and who they really were

It worked. "Tres Delinquentes" reached number thirty-five on the main American chart and number ten on the rap one, with a debut album that entered the Billboard 200. For a Spanglish group coming out of Norwalk, that is a heavy blow landed.

Two more things get told wrongly and are worth straightening, because they make what they did look bigger on its own. Delinquent Habits were not "discovered" by Sen Dog, of Cypress Hill: he is credited as executive producer, which is a godfather's role, not a creator's. And they were not part of the Soul Assassins collective; that is another producer's brand from that scene. The sound and the achievement are theirs.

Third turn: the adopted homeland is in the Alps

And here is the loveliest fact of all, and the one that almost never gets told. You would assume a Chicano group rapping over a mariachi trumpet would sweep Mexico and Spain. It did not. Their home is in Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

The song was top thirty on the German charts and top thirty-five on the Swiss ones. Of all their logged concerts, after Los Angeles the cities they have played most often are Swiss. And this winter's tour, twelve dates, is entirely Austrian, Swiss and German. Not one in Spain. Not one in the United States.

Think about it: a sound from the Mexican border, reinvented twice in California, ended up finding its most faithful audience at the foot of the Alps. Music does this. It leaves a garage in Los Angeles and thirty years later fills rooms in Zurich. And the group carries on: it released a new album in February 2026, three decades after that first blow.

What to remember

"Tres Delinquentes" is the happy ending of a chain of three transformations. A composer writes a fanfare. A Los Angeles trumpeter records it alone in his garage, imitating mariachis, and founds a record empire with it. And three Chicanos from Norwalk receive it, licence it properly, put Spanglish rhymes on it and turn it into an anthem that, against all odds, made its home in Switzerland.

There is nothing Italian in that trumpet, and nothing stolen either. There is a border sound that never stopped being passed from hand to hand.

Remember it this way: Delinquent Habits did not steal the riff from anyone. They inherited it, signed for it, and sent it around the world.

---

Sources

Delinquent Habits, an American hip hop group formed in Norwalk, California, made up of Ivan "Ives Irie" Martin, David "Kemo the Blaxican" Thomas and Alejandro "O.G. Style" Martinez, the last also a producer; none of them is recorded as having died. "Tres Delinquentes", released on 7 April 1996, samples "The Lonely Bull (El Solo Toro)", recorded in August 1962 by Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass and composed by Sol Lake, whose legal name is Solomon Lachoff, credited as co-writer of the track alongside the group's three members; it also incorporates a sample of "3 Lil' Putos", by Cypress Hill. No legal claim over the use of the sample is on record. The widely circulated attribution of the fragment to Ennio Morricone has no basis: Morricone (who died on 6 July 2020) took part in none of the recordings. Herb Alpert, born 31 March 1935 and still active, recorded "The Lonely Bull" by overdubbing his own trumpet and founded A&M Records to release it; Sol Lake died on 2 March 1991. "Tres Delinquentes" reached number 35 on the Billboard Hot 100, number 10 on Hot Rap Songs, number 30 in Germany and number 34 in Switzerland, and did not chart in Austria or the United Kingdom; no position is recorded for Spain. The self-titled debut album (4 June 1996) reached number 74 on the Billboard 200 and number 31 on the R&B and hip hop albums chart. Sen Dog, of Cypress Hill, is credited as the album's executive producer, not as its discoverer or musical producer, and the group was not part of the Soul Assassins collective. The sales figures in circulation — from 450,000 to more than a million copies — carry no RIAA certification. Their album "El Ritmo" was released on 6 February 2026 and their tour from November 2026 to January 2027 comprises dates in Austria, Switzerland and Germany. A Rebobinados rewrite of previously verified research; interpretations are offered as the author's reading. No song lyrics are reproduced, for copyright reasons. Information drawn from Wikipedia, Billboard, RIAA, Genius, WhoSampled, MusicBrainz, laut.de, The Independent and other coverage.