



A Mexican singer, who found fame with a song in praise of a high-heeled female drug trafficker, is in intensive care after being shot six times in an ambush that killed two other people.

Javier Rosas was injured early on Sunday morning when gunmen armed with AK-47 assault rifles opened fire on his car in Culiacán, the capital of Sinaloa state, and home to the Sinaloa Cartel.

The attack was a latest in a spate of incidents targeting groups who sing narcocorridos – ballads which glorify drug traffickers to the music of accordions, Sousaphones and machine gun sound effects.

In December, he was rushed off stage by security guards when shooting broke out as he sang a number, entitled 500 gunshots, during a concert in the neighbouring state of Durango.

In early March, Gerardo Ortiz, 26, suspended his show in the central state of Mexico when a series of shots sent the audience scrambling for the exits. Ortiz survived a 2011 attack which killed his manager and driver in the state of Colima.

Gerardo Ortiz has been the target of attacks against Mexican singers who perform narcocorridos. Photograph: Rodrigo Varela/Getty Images for Univision

At the end of February, another singer, 17-year-old Alfredito Olivas, was shot during a concert in Chihuahua, another northern state, reportedly because he flirted with the gunman’s girlfriend during the show.

Olivas survived the attack, though two members of the audience died.



“These events are a product of the sick relationship between popular culture and narco power,” says Javier Valdéz, a reporter from the investigative weekly RíoDoce based in Culiacán. “They have got worse over time because, just as the violence and narcos have grown stronger around Mexico, so has narco-culture.”



Many Mexican states have laws which prohibit the playing of narcocorridos in public, but the genre remains wildly popular, and the bans are rarely enforced. Many of the current crop of stars go beyond the more traditional ballads of outlaw exploits with lyrics that revel in graphic descriptions of decapitations and other forms extreme violence associated with Mexico’s drug wars.

“The singers and the narcos are involved in a kind of mutual flirtation,” says Valdéz. “The singers need the money and want the fame, and the narcos need the projection.”

The attack on Rosas, whose band is called Heavy Artillery, reportedly began with a car chase through Culiacán that ended when the singer’s vehicle crashed into a post in a shopping mall car park. Rosas and another passenger managed to escape by running into the mall. The car’s driver was killed at the wheel, while a third passenger died at the entrance to the shopping centre.

A statement released by the singer’s press office on Monday said Rosas had undergone lengthy surgery and appealed for blood donors.

“Javier has lost a lot of blood because of the number of impacts received,” the statement said.

State prosecutor Marco Antonio Higuera Gomez said at a press conference on Tuesday that Rosas had six bullet wounds – three in his legs, two in his abdomen and one in his arm.

The statement added that nothing was known about the suspected shooters or the motives of the attack.

One source in Sinaloa said the attack was rumoured to have been a ordered by Culiacán crime bosses to punish Rosas for singing about rival traffickers.

The lyrics of his breakthrough hit, In the Sierra and in the City, suggest he was identified with the local Sinaloa Cartel.

Another source from the city doubted Rosas was the target of the attack. “Why would they have left him alive?” the source said.



The attack on Rosas and his entourage came amid a spike of violence in Sinaloa, including an ambush that killed the police chief of the mountain municipality of Badiraguato, the birthplace of a number of Mexico’s most famous traffickers.

The reason for recent violence is not clear. Some speculate it could be related to the Easter holidays in which the state receives visitors with old scores to settle. Others say it could be the first sign of an attempted incursion into Sinaloa Cartel territory by a rival gang.

This article was corrected on 24 March to reflect updated information about the number of times Javier Rosas was shot.