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.