There’s a New Black Market for Tubas in LA

It’s been a while since the Biggie/Tupac-era, but just when you thought it couldn’t get any softer than Brooklyn’s newest “Babyccino” trend, Los Angeles has to go and out-do us with their latest social epidemic: black market tubas.

Sadly, “tubas” aren’t some cool new street drugs that make everything around you sound like the drop in some horrible dubstep “banger.” NPR reports “at least 23 tubas have been stolen from eight different high schools in and around L.A. in less than a year,” and while it’s possible that the brass is being sold for scrap metal, evidence points to a correlation between the spike in tuba theft and the rising popularity of banda, a “tuba-heavy” iteration of Mexican polka music. Seems like banda buffs are so tweaked out on the instrument that a substantial tuba trade ring has cropped up. According to Los Angeles school police officer Omar Sanchez:

Read the rest over at Noisey.