Cost of music for Mexico's drug balladeer

Source:AFP Published: 2014-4-14 20:18:01

"El Komander" struts on stage, pours expensive whisky into a fan's mouth and sings about grenade launchers - just another wild night for a Mexican singer who has faced bans for eulogizing drug lords.

Wearing a black leather jacket and military fatigue pants, Alfredo Rios took his show to 5,500 people in Texcoco, in the state of Mexico, a region of 15 million people enduring a spike in murders this year.

The man with the short-cropped hair and beard is among the most popular performers of "narco-corridos" - musical histories of the life and death of drug kingpins sung to a polka-like beat, driven by an accordion, guitar, drums and tuba.

The genre has gained many fans among Hispanics who live across the border in the US. Rios appeared in the US documentary Narco Cultura, which describes the cross-border fascination with Mexico's drug culture.

Lately though, the thirty-something star has been less than popular with the authorities, especially in states that have struggled to tame violence.

With songs like "100 Gunshots to the Armor," "The Executioner" and "New Mafia," Rios was slapped with a record 100,000-peso ($7,700) fine last year following a concert in the northern state of Chihuahua, an epicenter of cartel turf wars.

More recently, he was banned from performing on Friday in another region beset by a surge in violence, the central state of Morelos south of Mexico City. Authorities accused him of promoting violence.

Posted in: Music

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