"Mexico’s country music stars are being killed at an alarming rate — 13 in the past year and a half, three already in December — in a trend that has gone hand in hand with the surge in violence between drug gangs," says James McKinley in the N.Y. Times (12/18/07). "None of the cases have been solved. All have borne the signs of Mexican underworld executions, sending a chill through the ranks of other grupero musicians, who sing to a country beat about love, violence and drugs in modern Mexico. ... In some cases, the musicians appeared to have ties to organized crime figures, making them potential targets in reprisal attacks from rival gangs. Others had composed ballads known as narcocorridos, glorifying the shadow world of drug dealers and hit men, which can offend other drug dealers and hit men."

Songs of Love and Murder, Silenced by Killings

   

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