Mexican Musicians Increasingly Targeted For Violence

Jose Luis Aquino, trumpet player for Los Conde (a popular group from
Oaxaca), was found dead last Thursday with his hands and feet bound
and a bag over his head, marking the third murder of a Mexican
musician in less than a week. The other victims were Sergio Gomez,
former resident of Chicago and lead singer of K-Paz de la Sierra and
Zayda Pena of Zayda and the Guilty Ones -- both popular mainstream
singers who received posthumous Grammy nominations for "Best Banda
Album" on the same day as the discovery of Aquino's body.

Violence against Mexican musicians has been a problem in the recent
past, but most victims have been performers of "narcocorridos," or
drug ballads, and have thus had ties to organized crime and
drug-trafficking. None of the latest victims appear to have any of the
same connections, which is leaving authorities puzzled as to possible
motives -- though in Aquino's case, a "crime of passion" is suspected.

Most Read



Etc.