THE BORDER REPORT

Sergio Vega composed some of my favorite narco-corridos in the genre. He had a great timing for crudeness and a strong sense of irony, especially in songs like "El Impostor de Malverde," the tale of an American CIA agent who took the place of Jesús Malverde in the Culiacán shrine only to end up dead in Colonia Las Quintas.

Last Saturday, Vega was summarily executed driving his red Cadillac to a party in Sinaloa where he was scheduled to perform. The gunmen, and this has the flavor of the old Sinaloa Cartel, killed him in front of one of his own promotional posters.

One of you, Curious, knew about the story within a couple of hours and let us know here; that's deeply appreciated.

I don't know why Vega was murdered; I can tell you that back in early 2008, he canceled an interview a Cd. Obregón reporter and I had scheduled with him because of some threats he had received. I was told at the time that he was leaving Mexico, clearly, he returned at some point over the past two years, ready to produce a new album.

Perhaps, like so many of his "ajuste de cuenta" themes, he deserved it for some breach in agreements. Was it was a rival faction, and when you consider the average of 11 murders a day that have taken place in Sinaloa this month, clearly the Sinaloans are being challenged on their turf, again (Barbie, perhaps?).

Regardless, the Mexican music scene lost a great performer who not only mocked his own music-style, (his tribute to La Troca Perrona still cracks me up) but amused himself in interviews, telling gossip site, La Oreja: "A mí me ha pasado muy seguido desde hace años, que pasa alguien, habla a la radio o a un periódico y se ha publicado en prensa que me mataron o sufrí un accidente y tengo que hablarle a mi mamá, esta malita del corazón y lo primero que hago es hablarle."

"It's happened to me regularly for years now, someone passes by and calls the radio or newspaper and it gets published in the press that they've killed me or I suffered an accident and then I have to call my mom, she has a bad heart, and the first thing I do is call her."

Anyway, such is the audacity of the business these days.