Musician who praised drug lords in 'narco ballads' shot dead as killing spree continues

A well-known Mexican singer whose band is famous for ‘narco corridos’ (drug ballads) dedicated to cartels has been shot dead by two people on a motorbike.

Ernesto Barajas was the lead singer of the popular group Enigma Norteno, which has around four million monthly listeners on Spotify. He is the latest musician in this genre to be killed recently as a wave of extreme violence continues to sweep the country. He was gunned down in the municipality of Zapopan, in the state of Jalisco, with police having opened an investigation.

It is understood two men on a motorcycle rode up to Barajas who was in a parking lot last Tuesday and shot him dead. Another man also died in the attack and a woman suffered a leg injury.

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Barajas, 38, was born in the state of Sinaloa and having set up his band aged 18 became well known in Mexico and the US. But he also became linked with drug cartels and organised crime, receiving a written threat before playing in Baja California in 2023.

He continued to mix his singing, where he collaborated with other famous Mexican musicians with links to cartels. He sang about ‘Los Chapitos’, the sons of jailed drug boss Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman, and also the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) - Nemesio Ruben ‘El Mencho’ Oseguera.

It is common in Mexico for drug gangs to pay musicians to make songs about their exploits and perform for them, but at the same time this also makes them a target in turf wars. Barajas repeatedly said he was not connected to organised crime but did admit gangs had on occasions asked him to compose songs.

"As long as you behave respectfully and don't offend other groups, you may or may not compose the corrido," the vocalist said in an interview with journalist José Luis Montenegro in April 2022.

His song about El Chapo referred to his escape from Altiplano prison on July 11, 2015, where he used a tunnel. Violence in Mexico has reached peak numbers following the break up of the Sinaloa Cartel in recent years, leading to around 30 deaths a day.

And singers of narco corridos have been targeted before with five members of the regional group, Fugitivo, killed in the north of Mexico last May.

Their bodies were found on wasteland, Tamaulipas state prosecutor Irving Barrios said, adding that nine people had been arrested. The people detained belonged to the Los Metros faction of the Gulf Cartel.