MEXICAN BROADCASTERS TAKE 'NARCO-BALLADS' OFF THE AIR

A Massacre Last Month Prompted A Self-imposed Ban On Drug Songs By Radio
Stations.

MEXICO CITY - Do violent lyrics in popular music foment violence?

Do songs about illegal drugs glorify the drug trade and turn traffickers
into heroes? Those might sound like questions for American rapper Eminem.
But they're being asked in Mexico, where a surge in drug-related killings
this year has rekindled a search for solutions.

One idea: banning narco-corridos or "narco-ballads."

Songs with drug themes have become increasingly common - and wildly popular
- - over recent years as Mexico's troubador musical groups sing of the social
conditions around them.

Last week the radio and television association of Sinaloa state banned
narco-ballads and other songs glorifying violence from the airwaves.

The ban came days after an apparently drug-related massacre that left 12
people dead in the Sinaloan village of El Limoncito. On Valentine's Day
most of El Limoncito's males of all ages were lined up by masked visitors
and gunned down with automatic weapons.

Within the broadcast industry, the ban's supporters say they don't want to
be associated with such violence. "Rather than let ourselves be used to
send messages that glorify violence, corruption, and illegal activities,"
says Manuel Perez Munoz, president of the Sinaloa office of the National
Chamber of the Radio and Television Industry (CIRT), "we want to send other
messages: of morality, of respect for life, of caring for children."
Sinaloa's 50 radio stations will soon begin running new spots promoting
community harmony and peaceful conflict resolution, Mr. Perez says. The
state's three local TV stations are considering joining the campaign. The
ban most notably affects the work of musicians like Los Tigres del Norte
and Los Tucanes de Tijuana, who have huge followings and high radio
exposure in Mexico's north.

The groups are also quite popular in the Mexican immigrant communities in
US cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston. Critics of the ban say
the songs are not the cause but only the reflection of a part of Mexican
life. This kind of measure "is like trying to block out the sun with your
thumb," says Jose Luis Marin, marketing executive of regional Mexican music
at Universal, the Tucanes' record label. "Groups like the Tucanes are
singing about what they see every day in newspapers and on TV, they're not
making anything up."

If Mexico's ranchero balladeers are simply chronicling northern Mexican
life, it was unavoidable they would sing of drug-trafficking - and of
Sinaloa. The Pacific coast state is considered the birthplace of Mexico's
multibillion-dollar drug trade.

Successful traffickers are heroes in many of Sinaloa's poor villages.

But the drug trade has also turned Sinaloa into one of Mexico's most
violent regions. Last year the state recorded more than 500 drug-related
killings. But not even the 90 killings registered in December and the first
two weeks of January prepared Sinaloa for the stunning sight of El
Limoncito's massacre victims.

The Sinaloa CIRT's Perez emphasizes that no groups will be pulled from the
radio, only songs with violent themes or lyrics that promote illegal
activities. "Of course we'll still play the Tigres and Tucanes," says the
owner of four Sinaloan radio stations.

Songs that will no longer be heard on Sinaloa radio include the Tigres'
"Lamberto Quintero," a lamentation of the killing of one of Sinaloa's most
powerful narcotraffickers, and the Tucanes' "Most Wanted Men," in which a
drug trafficker brags about using his money to buy politicians and "control
entire countries."

Music historians and sociologists say contemporary corrido singers are
doing what Mexican balladeers have done since the beginning of the 20th
century, when themes of the day were revolution, land rights, and the rise
of the poor. But others say the narco-ballads have crossed the line from
chronicling to promoting and glorifying. And with Sinaloa reeling from a
surge in violence, that perception of glorification became intolerable.
Some record companies say they believe radio bans and other actions that
reduce exposure for certain groups probably translate into lower record
sales. But the nonplussed Tucanes don't seem too worried.

When the Sinaloa ban was announced, the group - originally from Sinaloa -
predicted fans would turn off the radio and play their tapes and CDs in
their pickups.