Making the soundtrack to Mexico's drug wars

His body wasn't even in the ground before the innuendo started flying across newspapers, televisions and websites. And although many details of his slaying remain murky, the incident has opened a narrow window onto the sub rosa world of narcocorridos, the immensely popular folk ballads that chronicle and celebrate the lives, loves and illicit achievements of Mexico's powerful drug lords.

That world apparently was known to Elizalde, though how well known is hard to say. He was born in Sonora, the son of a famous musician and a champion of norteno music, the accordion- and 12-string-guitar-based hybrid of polka, waltz and corrido (narrative sung poetry) that has thrived for generations across Mexico.

While corridos have been used to address a wide range of subject matter -- romantic yearnings, revolutionary ideals, farmworker struggles -- one of the most successful subgenres for roughly the last 30 years, particularly in northern Mexico and the southwestern United States, has been narcocorridos. The best of these controversial tunes, such as "Contrabando y Traicion" (Smuggling and Betrayal), written by Angel Gonzalez and turned into a monster hit by the master corridistas Los Tigres del Norte, are classics of sustained mood, wit and narrative concision.

Elizalde had written and performed several of these musical homages, at least one of which was dedicated to Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the on-the-lam leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel, based in the Pacific coast state of that name. Elizalde opened and closed his final, fateful performance with another song, "A Mis Enemigos" ("To My Enemies"), which can be interpreted either as a righteous musical mini-autobiography, a la "My Way," or an angry taunt.

So far, no evidence has emerged linking Mexico's drug wars to the death of Elizalde, who left three young daughters. It's possible that the singer, whose funeral procession drew thousands of mournful fans, was entirely innocent and tragically in the wrong place at the wrong time. But given the ruthlessness that has marked the ongoing turf battle between the Sinaloan and rival Gulf cartel, based in Matamoros and Reynosa, it's not surprising that Saturday's triple slaying (a fourth man was badly wounded) is being characterized by many here as a gangland reprisal.