Wrong song can be fatal in Mexico's drug turf wars

By Laurence Iliff and Alfredo Corchado
The Dallas Morning News(MCT)

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico - With their polka-inspired music and gritty lyrics, norteno groups along the Mexico-Texas frontier have long documented the trials of border life and have turned the north's drug lords into living legends.

Now some of the musicians are apparently in the crosshairs of the rough-hewn men they croon about in narcocorridos, the narrative songs with journalistic-like details of drug shipments, boastful taunts, and bloody revenge.

Last Wednesday, norteno singer Javier Morales Gomez of the group Los Implacables del Norte was gunned down in the plaza of Huetamo in Michoacan state. Three days earlier, singer Lupillo Rivera was shot at while driving his SUV in Guadalajara.

Last month, singer Valentin Elizalde was shot to death in Reynosa - across from McAllen, Texas - after singing a song regarded as sympathetic to the Sinaloa cartel from his home state. The song is called "To My Enemies."

Analysts say the attacks are an alarming indication of how bad things have become in a turf war between the Sinaloa cartel and the Nuevo Laredo-based Gulf cartel.