CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico, (Reuters) – Young Mexican rappers are using Internet radio to condemn killings sparked by President Felipe Calderon’s drug war, drawing praise from Buenos Aires to Barcelona but also death threats from gunmen.
Broadcasting from living rooms on the same poor, unpaved streets in Ciudad Juarez where hitmen fight soldiers and police on a daily basis, dozens of musicians gather around microphones to rap live on the radio. Listeners send in requests and comments via social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook.
Under pseudonyms such as Pok 37 and Siniestra, the rappers decry the army’s cat-and-mouse game with the henchmen of powerful drug traffickers and the criminal anarchy it has spawned.
A manufacturing center, Ciudad Juarez is now one of the world’s deadliest cities, where thousands of Mexican soldiers and federal police take on gunmen as young as 14 in a war zone just yards (metres) from the prosperity of El Paso, Texas.
