Pubdate: Wed, 26 Dec 2007
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Page: A01, Front Page
Copyright: 2007 The Washington Post Company
Contact:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Manuel Roig-Franzia, Washington Post Foreign Service
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/area/Mexico (Mexico)

THE SAVAGE SILENCING OF MEXICO'S MUSICIANS

Killings Bear Hallmarks of Drug Cartel Hitmen

MORELIA, Mexico -- Sergio Gomez roared into town in a big SUV, 
entourage in tow, pressed suits, fancy cowboy boots.

Everything about him said superstar. He had an international 
following, an impish smile that drove the women wild and a star on 
the walk of fame in Las Vegas. More than 20,000 fans swarmed the 
parking lot of this colonial city's soccer stadium to dance and hear 
him sing romantic "Duranguense grupero" pop songs backed by a driving drumbeat.

After the show, in the small hours of Dec. 2, Sergio Gomez was 
kidnapped. Police found his body the next day. He'd been strangled 
and beaten. His face -- a face that graced album covers and made 
teenage girls blush -- was disfigured by burn marks.

Sergio Gomez, 34, was the latest of a dozen pop musicians to have 
been killed in the past year in Mexico. Nearly every one of the 
slayings bore the hallmarks of the drug cartel hitmen blamed for 
4,000 deaths in the country in the past two years.

But the savage murder of Sergio Gomez -- one of Mexico's hottest 
singers, a headliner whose band, K-Paz de la Sierra, commanded 
$100,000 a show, twice the rate of other top bands -- was different. 
It has set off an unprecedented chain reaction in which at least half 
a dozen bands have canceled concert tours. Popular bands, such as the 
Duranguense act Patrulla 81, which backed out of four major shows, 
are terrified of coming to Morelia and the surrounding state of Michoacan.

"All this is very dark for us," Jose Angel Medina, Patrulla 81's lead 
singer, said in an interview. "We're very worried. Very scared."

Among music industry insiders, Sergio Gomez's death and the previous 
killings are also forcing a quiet assessment of the influence drug 
trafficking kingpins wield over the business. It is common knowledge 
in Mexico's music industry, but not known to the general public, that 
drug cartels finance the careers of some budding musicians, then 
launder money through unregulated concert ticket sales, according to 
industry sources, musicians and law enforcement.

There has been no suggestion that Sergio Gomez was backed by drug 
money. But the obvious cartel-hitmen trademarks in his killing have 
been the catalyst for the music industry to question the risks of 
mixing socially and professionally with drug traffickers.

"The narcos are completely involved in the business," Lucio Tzin 
Tzun, who has been a concert promoter here for 20 years, said in an 
interview. "They control everything. It's like a mafia."

Dangerous Benefactors

The marriage of music and the underworld is nothing new. In the 
United States, Frank Sinatra was long criticized for being too cozy 
with the mafia and, more recently, gangsta rappers often have been 
accused of celebrating violence against police.

In Mexico, the musical celebration of counterculture figures is in 
the country's DNA. An array of homages are still sung to Pancho Villa 
- -- a bandit turned revolutionary-era folk hero. The new bandit heroes 
are drug traffickers, celebrated in songs known as narcocorridos and 
written by artists who are "essentially court poets for the drug 
world," said Elijah Wald, author of the book "Narcocorrido: A Journey 
Into the Music of Drugs, Guns and Guerrillas."

"It's all about being like Pancho Villa," Wald said in an interview.

The existence of the narcocorrido genre made the drug cartel-style 
killing of Gomez all the more puzzling. Sergio Gomez, who launched 
his musical career in Chicago, made his reputation with romantic 
ballads and kitschy covers, such as the New Orleans-inflected classic 
"Jambalaya." He didn't sing about drug dealers. Sergio Gomez was 
certainly no Valentin Elizalde, the Mexican singer murdered in 
November 2006 after his narcocorrido "To All My Enemies," a song that 
mocked drug kingpin Osiel Cardenas, became an Internet sensation.

A clear line seemed to connect Elizalde's lyrics to his demise. No 
such line ties Sergio Gomez's music to his death.

But Wald said the popular notion that only narcocorrido singers mix 
with drug lords couldn't be further from the truth. Musicians are 
sometimes expected to give private concerts for kingpins, and to play 
whatever the kingpin wants to hear for as long the kingpin and his 
friends feel like listening.

"The drug lord is just as likely to ask for songs by Jose Alfredo 
Jimenez [a popular ballad crooner] as a narcocorrido," Wald said.

Deals and Consequences

The nexus between drug traffickers and musicians often forms in poor 
mountain villages. Young musicians have few sources of income to 
launch their careers. There is scant public funding for popular music 
genres, which ruling elites look down upon as "lower-class junk," 
according to Wald.

Drug traffickers are often the only wealthy people in the mountain 
villages of states such as Sinaloa, a hotbed of cartel activity. In 
the most extreme situations, the musician can become almost a serf to 
his kingpin sponsors.

"There are those who dedicate themselves to singing for those 
people," Alfredo Ramirez Corral, lead singer of Los Creadorez del 
Pasito Duranguense, said in an interview. But Corral, whose group 
canceled a December show in Michoacan, was reluctant to criticize 
musicians who cater to narcotraffickers, saying that "each person has 
to do what they can to make a living."

Traffickers are drawn to musical acts because they provide an easy 
platform to launder money. There are other easy options, but none is 
so culturally prestigious. It is the glamour of the music scene that 
makes it irresistible to narcotraffickers, said Rolando Coro, a 
well-known disc jockey at Radio Tremendous in Morelia.

"They show up at the dances, these drug traffickers, and order the 
expensive whiskey, not just a glass, but the whole bottle," Coro 
said. "They have pretty women following them around. It's fun for them."

Bands that make deals with drug traffickers get a crucial leg up on 
the competition. Tzin Tzun, the promoter, can spot them with ease.

"They come into town with the most expensive equipment, stuff from 
Germany, stuff that costs thousands of dollars," he said. "But 
nobody's ever heard of these guys. They were on the rancho yesterday, 
today they're on billboards."

But support from a drug dealer comes with strings. Traffickers expect 
a hefty cut of profits -- sometimes 20 percent or more -- and react 
violently if they don't get what they believe they're owed, music 
industry insiders say. Still, bands take chances.

"Bands start to get popular and sometimes they want to keep more of 
the money," Tzin Tzun said.

Drug traffickers can also expect musicians to be available to them at 
a moment's notice. But band leaders, especially those who achieve 
major commercial success, sometimes grow weary of altering schedules 
to suit their patrons' desires.

"So a capo has supported you since you were kids," Wald said. "Now 
it's his daughter's birthday party and instead you take the gig in 
Morelia for $100,000."

The consequences of such intransigence can be fatal, industry insiders say.

Proximity with drug traffickers can also lead to other dangerous 
entanglements. Music industry sources have theorized that some of the 
singers killed in the past year may have been romantically involved 
with the wives and girlfriends of drug kingpins, or simply that 
cartel honchos may have become jealous of handsome musicians.

"Skirts," Coro said. "That's what they say a lot of this is about. 
Musicians chasing skirts."

A Week of Tears

The spasm of violence against musicians in the state of Michoacan 
began a year ago, about the same time that Mexican President Felipe 
Calderon, a native of Michoacan, was launching a military offensive 
against drug cartels here. On Dec. 14, three days after the arrival 
of more than 6,000 soldiers and federal police officers, Javier 
Morales Sergio Gomez, leader of the popular band Los Implacables del 
Norte, was gunned down in Michoacan. Sergio Gomez, no relation to 
Sergio Sergio Gomez, had sung narcocorridos with titles such as 
"Death Contract" and "Drug Tragedy."

Two months later, four members of Banda Fugaz were shot to death in 
the town of Puruaran after a concert. A fifth band member survived 
the shooting.

Then there seemed to be a calm. No musicians died in Michoacan in the 
spring, summer or fall. Sergio Sergio Gomez, who grew up in 
Michoacan, was set for a big show in December and tickets went fast. 
The decision to play Michoacan surprised some here. Coro said Sergio 
Gomez canceled a show the year before amid rumors that he had 
offended a violent drug trafficker.

As Sergio Gomez was preparing for his appearance, the music industry 
was jolted by news from the far north of Mexico. The worst six days 
in the recent history of Mexican music were about to begin.

On Friday, Nov. 30, Zayda Pena, the 28-year-old singer of Zayda y Los 
Culpables, was shot in the neck in Matamoros, across the border from 
Brownsville, Tex. She was rushed to the hospital. But a gunman came 
into her room Dec. 1 and blasted a bullet into her heart. She died instantly.

That evening, Sergio Gomez stepped to the microphone in Morelia, 
nearly 500 miles to the south. Hours after his show, around 3 a.m. on 
Dec. 2, he was kidnapped. His body was found the next day.

There did not appear to be a connection between the killings of 
Sergio Gomez and Pena. Still the violence wasn't over. A few days 
later, the body of Jose Luis Aquino, a trumpeter with the band Los 
Conde, was found in the southern state of Oaxaca. His hands and feet 
had been bound and his head was covered with a plastic bag.

It should have been a joyous week for Mexico's sizzling music scene, 
instead of a week of tears and funeral Masses. Grammy nominations 
were due on Thursday, Dec. 6, and Mexican bands were expected to fare well.

The nominations went off as planned. When the Banda album category 
was announced, the list was stocked with Mexican musical royalty. But 
it was also a reminder of the violence that racks this country.

One of the five nominees, the singer Lupillo Rivera, had survived 
when his SUV was hit by seven bullets in December 2006 in 
Guadalajara. Two other nominees, Elizalde and Sergio Gomez -- who was 
nominated with his band -- were dead. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake