Sergio ‘El Shaka’ Vega: Mexican Singer Murdered

Just hours before he was murdered Sergio ‘El Shaka’ Vega denied rumors that he had been murdered and reported on Twitter that he had increased his security.
Sergio Vego was 40-years-old and on his way to a concert in Sinaloa state in northwest Mexico when he was chased down and murdered by drug cartel hit-men on June 26, 2010. His full name is José Sergio Vega Cuamea but he is best known by his stage-name ‘El Shaka’. He was a Mexican banda singer. One of many Mexican singers who are famous for Grupero music, Mexican folk music. Grupero music sometimes features narcocorridos which are ballads celebrating Mexico’s drug cartel culture. Mexican musicians who are known for singing narcocorridos are often the target of rival gangs. Over the past three years, at least seven of these musicians have been murdered in Mexico. Apparently, ‘El Shaka’ is the most recent to meet that fate.

In a bizarre twist to his story, there had been rumors circulating on the internet that he had been murdered before he was actually killed. Just a few hours before he was killed, he gave an interview to the website La Oreja in which he confirmed he was still very much alive. He told La Oreja: It’s happened to me for years now, someone tells a radio station or a newspaper I’ve been killed, or suffered an accident, and then I have to call my dear mum, who has heart trouble, to reassure her. He said that he had recently increased his security.
Vega was driving his red Cadillac to the concert in a village in Sinaloa state when the gunmen’s truck pulled up along side of him. The truck chased him for some distance, shooting at him. He was apparently hit by bullets and crashed his car in the hills of Barobampo. According to reports, the gunmen then fired a number of shots into Vega’s head and chest at close range to ‘finish him off’.
A passenger in Sergio Vega’s car was also seriously injured. Montiel Sergio Avila was hit about 30 times with bullets in the attack.
Sergio Vega’s long-time manager, Ana Luisa Gomez wrote on Twitter about his death. ‘My best friend is already in heaven, there is not a circus Shaka shaka is with God.’