A Mexican singer, who initially rose to stardom in the 90s after he returned fire during one of his shows he was shot at, died just hours after accepting a note from the crowd.
You might not have heard of Chalino Sanchez, but you may well have seen viral footage of him onstage reading a note before wiping sweat from his forehead and continuing to sing.
Chanilo Sanchez can be seen reading a note while on stage in 1992 – before being kidnapped and executed (Discos Musart/YouTube)
The Mexican singer-songwriter was known as the king of narcocorridos, a ballad sung in traditional Mexican style with its lyrics recounting the exploits of drug trafficking.
The genre dates back to the early 1900s, but its popularity on the Mexican/US border has increased in recent years.
Gerardo Ortiz is one of its current well-known singers, a Californian native of Mexican descent, whose song ‘In Preparation’ hails the notorious Sinaloa Cartel kingpin Manuel Torres Felix.
“If you aren’t good at killing, then you’re good at dying,” Ortiz sings before name-dropping the drug trafficker Felix, known as M1, or even ‘the crazy one’, who died during fighting Mexican soldiers in 2012.
But while Ortiz may have found fame in the industry in recent years, it was Sanchez who really made narcocorridos his own genre.
Here’s the chilling clip, along with the context below:
Sanchez was born in the city of Culiacán, northwest Mexico, in the state of Sinaloa, and at the young age of just 15, he is believed to have shot and killed the man who raped his sister.
Two years later, he fled to the US to avoid authorities, before settling down with his aunt in a Los Angeles neighborhood in 1984.
Around that time, Sanchez was incarcerated for minor crimes, and it was in prison that he began to create ballads.
Upon his release, he was introduced to Chilean singer-songwriter Ángel Parra, who began helping him produce his own music.
Years later, in 1992, Sanchez narrowly escaped death after being shot at twice during a concert at the Plaza Los Arcos restaurant and nightclub in Coachella, California.
But he Mexican immigrant always took the stage packing a loaded gun, and fired back at both Eduardo Gallegos and Claudio Rene Carranza, who had been sent to kill him.
A mural has been created for Sánchez for the Rancho Humilde Studio in Paramount, California. (Unique Nicole/Getty Images)
One of Sanchez’s bullets struck one of Carranza’s main arteries, leading to him dying of blood loss, while Gallegos was caught by police and sentenced to 20 years behind bars.
Just four months later, while performing onstage in his home town of Culiacán, Sinaloa, Sanchez was handed the ‘death note’.
While it has never been officially confirmed what was written on the note, it is believed that it was contained a message from a rival gang member telling him his fate was near, while many online suggesting it read ‘we told you not to come back’.
It is understood that when Sanchez left the bar, named Salón Bugambilias, he was pulled over by Mexican ‘cops’ who informed him their general wanted to see him.
His body was found the next day, with two gunshot wounds to the back of his head, while his wrists had marks similar to that of being tied up, and his eyes were covered.
