Drug ballads turn deadly for Mexico border singers

TIJUANA, Mexico, May 3 (Reuters) Mexican singers in cowboy hats have praised the escapades of drug smugglers for decades but their seemingly harmless songs have now turned deadly in a bitter narco war.

Killings between drug cartels have spilled over into bars, parties and concerts, with hitmen killing and assaulting musicians seen as siding with rival gangs in the lyrics of their ''narco corrido'' ballads.

''Narco corridos are too dangerous for us to sing these days,'' said a band manager who runs five groups in Tijuana, just south of the border with California.

''We used to sing for drug gangs whenever and wherever they wanted but my boys have been beaten up and had guns held to their heads, all kinds of threats for choosing the wrong song,'' he said, dressed in a black cowboy hat, boots and jeans.

Well-known singer Valentin ''Golden Rooster'' Elizalde was killed by a hail of bullets last year in the border town of Reynosa, the heartland of the powerful Gulf Cartel, apparently for singing the famous narco corrido ''To My Enemies.'' The ballad is seen as a musical attack on the cartel's private army, The Zetas.

Dozens of small bands specializing in narco corridos, which are akin to US hip hop and gangsta rap in their lionizing of criminal anti-heroes, are going out of business because they fear turning up at lavish narco parties, the easiest way to earn a good wage as a musician along the US border.

''Even if you try to change, this area is crawling with narcos. You never know who you're singing for,'' said another band manager who works the Ciudad Juarez area bordering Texas.

More than 700 people have been killed in Mexico this year in a fight between drug gangs. The main struggle is between the Gulf Cartel and an alliance headed by Joaquin ''Shorty'' Guzman, a ruthless prison escapee who is Mexico's most wanted man.

GOLDEN ERA Elizalde's fate contrasts with that of legendary singer Beto Quintanilla, who sang for decades about drug cartels without threats and died of natural causes in March.

''The golden era when narco corrido musicians were respected is over. It is part of a general breakdown in the code of honor among drug traffickers,'' said Victor Soto, a Tijuana-based author.

Narco corridos -- a branch of the accordion-based northern Mexican corrido music that grew out of the upheaval of the 19th century war between the United States and Mexico -- are still booming, but in the safety of Los Angeles recording studios.

Groups like Los Tucanes de Tijuana have signed with US record labels and draw sponsorship from mainstream companies, even if that means couching their lyrics in metaphors to avoid causing offense.

Grammy-winning Los Tigres del Norte, originally from the western drug-producing state of Sinaloa, started out singing about marijuana smuggling in ''Contraband and Treason'' in the early 1970s before turning to more universal themes such as love and betrayal, albeit in the underworld.

Their best-known song ''Jefe de Jefes'' is considered a boastful, first-person account of an all-powerful capo but could equally be seen as a song for any proud criminal leader.

At their most explicit, narco corridos brag of daredevil cocaine smuggling attempts, gold-plated weapons, fast women or outwitting the Mexican police.

''They are always part myth and part reality,'' said Lilian Paola Ovalle, an expert in narco corridos at the Autonomous University of Baja California.

Even with the threat of angering drug gangs, some musicians are determined to take the risk and play their characteristic songs in bars, brothels and haciendas.

''I'll play for anyone, drink with anyone, snort with anyone,'' said one singer at a bar on Tijuana's seedy beach front. ''If they want to shoot me for it, so be it.'' Reuters RS RS2247