Funded by drugs

I was very interested to see Reed Johnson’s article on the narco-artists of Culiacan (“Art in a gangster’s paradise,” March 2) but wanted to add one bit of missing perspective. I interviewed most of the featured artists for my book “Narcocorrido,” and they were quite clear that virtually all money in Culiacan is related in some way to the drug traffic, including the donations that finance the city’s rich cultural life. Some of the painters’ biggest sales have been to people related to the traffic. This is not to say that the artists are complicit, but only that they are not simply intellectuals commenting on the crime world.

Drugs are considered as basic to the economy in Culiacan as cars are in Detroit, and virtually everyone in town is wrapped up in the myth, if not the reality, of this world -- the artists are just a particularly visible sample.

By the way, the people who sing drug ballads are narcocorridistas, not narcocorridos. Narcocorridos are the songs themselves.

Elijah Wald

New Orleans