Industry on edge after Mexican musicians killed

Reminiscent of drug world
Another singer, Zayda Pena, was executed with similar brutality on Saturday. Pena was shot in the neck on Friday at a motel in the border city of Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas. The following day, she was fatally shot in the hospital where she was recovering from surgery.

Again, it was a tactic reminiscent less of the music scene and more of the drug world, in which gangs have been known to storm hospitals to rescue wounded comrades or finish off injured rivals. But like Gomez, Pena had no known drug associations.

While Gomez was famous for his up-tempo "Pasito Duranguense" rhythm and Pena wrote more in the ballad-like "grupero" style, both essentially sang songs whose themes went little beyond love. The most famous song of Gomez, who started the group as an immigrant in Chicago, includes the lines:

"Don't ask me why

I've been so good to you

I just know that you're my religion,

And I don't care if they call that fanaticism."

The earlier slayings involved musicians who sang about the criminal underworld. Valentin Elizalde, who was killed last year after performing across the border from McAllen, Texas, became popular with "To My Enemies," a song frequently seen as a drug lord's anthem.

Many musicians are now worried that becoming associated with a drug gang may be as easy as waiting for someone to use their song as the soundtrack to a homemade video.

"More than anything else, the point is that musicians make music, they don't belong to any group," said Diaz, the representatives of Los Tucanes. "Nobody has the right to take anybody else's life."

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