Los Tigres del Norte (English: The Tigers of the North) is a norteño group based in San Jose, California, with origins in Rosa Morada, Mocorito, Sinaloa, Mexico. The group was started by Jorge Hernandez, his brothers, and his cousins. They then began recording after moving to San Jose, California in the late 1960s, when all the members were still in their teens. They were sponsored by a local record company, Discos Fama, owned by an Englishman named Art Walker, who took them under his wing and helped them find jobs and material, as well as recording all of their early albums. The Tigres were at first only locally popular, but took off after Jorge and Art Walker heard a Los Angeles mariachi singer perform a song in the early 1971 about a couple of drug runners, Emilio Varela and Camelia la Texana.