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La
Muerte Tragica de
Adan “Chalinillo” Sanchez
By Julián Segura
Camacho |
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The
sudden and tragic death of Norteño & Banda Sinaloense singer
Adan Chalinillo Sanchez, known as “El Compita”, in Sinaloa
en route to Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco shocked the music world
of Los Angeles and, more importantly, his ever-growing fan
base. This fan base ranged from teenage Mexican girls to
young men to older folks. Yet who was Adan Sanchez and why
did he matter to people in Los Angeles and other towns and
cities of California?
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and foremost, he was the only son of the famed and deceased
Norteño singer known as Chalino Sanchez. Therein begins the
corrido of Adan Sanchez. For his father was a homegrown Norteño
singer who took old romance songs and gave them his own style.
He was a vaquero with the sombrero, oro in his wrist, tight
jeans and tucked-in stripped dress shirts con botas y un cinto
pitiado. |
| Chalino
also wrote corridos for people who would pay him in clubs—cantinas
such as El Parral in South Gate on Firestone or La Llamarada
in Lennox. The corridos were about people’s struggles and
illegalities (drug dealing, pueblo to pueblo fights, dedications,
survival). Chalino came to be known as the father of narcocorridos,
but his heart was in romances from former singers such as
"Las Jilguerillas." Chalino became a hit because he sang from
the heart; he was from the streets many of us know. He was
a typical Mexicano en Los Angeles. Se habia brincado el cerco,
he worked in the fields, later factories, he lived in neighborhoods
such as Lennox under the path of the Los Angeles Airport,
later to Paramount, just east of Compton. Chalino sold his
cassettes in the Paramount Swap Meet; with his squeaky voice
he became the Premier Chicano Singer of the 1990s after he
had met a tragic end in Sinaloa. |
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May 16, 1992 Chalino’s car after a performance in Culiacan
was intercepted by another car and found dead the following
day. Nobody has ever been charged with his death. Instantly,
the news of the death of Chalino spread and over night, he
became immortalized. His record sales flourished; he was more
alive than dead. Chalino became eternal and legendary first
and foremost in Los Angeles. Chalino had more impact culturally
on Mexicans than any other figure. Chalino’s audience began
to spread from high schoolers that were more interested in
Hip Hop or alternative rock. Chalino transformed the cholo.
Jose Ramirez from South Gate states: “The cholo became a rancholo—listening
to corridos whereas before they only liked oldies in English.”
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| Chalino
made Mexican youth proud of being Mexicano in the chuntaro
sense. With Chalino you could be proud of being mojado - there
was no shame, speaking Mexican Spanish flourished, wearing
botas y tejanas carried a warrior’s pride. All this from a
group of people who were suppose to assimilate into Brown
Gringos. These youth, most U.S. born in the mid-seventies
to mid-eighties, were listening to rancho music that had been
transplanted from ranchos in Sinaloa, Sonora, Baja California
into the Southeast Los Angeles and parts of the South Bay
such as Lennox, Watts, Wilmington and Long Beach. Mexicans
born in the U.S. part of Mexico were becoming more Mexican
than those born in Mexico for Chalino’s popularity was in
the United States. |
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Adan
Sanchez was the offspring of this unexpected cultural legacy.
Chalino started a genre of music that most Norteño singers
after him modeled. Chalino is the only dead singer that
I know of who continues to sing duos, even make videos while
dead. Lupillo Rivera sang a duo with Chalino - as did Adan,
when the son of this cult figure came of age. He, too, exercised
his don and padrinismo. He began singing early on, although
with the death of his father, he had to live with that pain
and anguish. He grew up in Paramount, attended Paramount
High School and sang Norteñas on his own terms and style.
He too carried the influence of his father: he wore his
tejana tilted but with a shaved head. He grew up speaking
Spanish and English. He was bilingual but spoke Español
with a Mexican and not Gringo or Pocho accent. He was representative
of these kids who grew up in a bilingual setting listening
to hip hip/rap but listening to his father and Los Cadetes
de Linares, as he mentioned once in an interview.
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| By
the age of 19, Adan had recorded eight albums and was beginning
to make a name for himself independent of his father. He had
signed a contract with Univision Records and was preparing
for what seemed to be a great future. The Friday prior to
his death he sang at the Kodak Theatre to a sold-out audience.
He had not achieved the fame of Lupillo Rivera but was beginning
to flourish. He was known in local radio stations and from
LATV’s “Mex To The Max” program. Adan was known to be humble,
simple and thankful for his growing fame. And yet he was a
local kid. He ate at eateries in Paramount where people would
recognize him. He walked among us. For those children his
age who missed his father’s brief stardom, they could now
relate to him through his style. And now just as my brothers
remember the death of Chalino, these same age groups will
now remember Adan’s tragic death from a car accident. |
| Last
year I wrote a play on Chalino precisely because of the positive
influence my youngest brother found in him. What I learned
of Adan’s death was not just the loss of one person, but also
the ending of a cultural future where Mexicans in Los Angeles
do not have many outlets of expression. In the English media
it is almost nonexistent. This White and Black American world
would rather accent a white boy rapping (Eminem) or a bunch
of white guys making fun of Rap (Beastie Boys) versus a Mexican
talking about Compton or Southgate. Therefore the only outlet
is in art forms such as Norteñas or Bandas in Spanish. Adan’s
legacy lays there, a regular Mexicano from Los Angeles and
not from a privilege musically-trained family in urban Mexico.
People saw him throughout their neighborhoods—and just like
his father he was no different than us. This was evident in
the funeral. |
| I
went to Adan’s funeral around 4 pm, parked my car four blocks
away and walked south on Pioneer Blvd. The street had been
blocked off. People were standing in line a quarter of a mile
away, orderly, waiting to say adios. It was moving and powerful
to see Mexicanos with ramos de flores, girls wearing obituary
shirts and older ladies holding children by their hands for
that glimpse. At that moment I wondered why the funeral was
not held at the LA Sports Arena or the Convention Center.
The outpouring was there. All people wanted to do was touch
the casket, say good bye to one of their own, to wash his
ferretro en flores. There was much amazement: Could this be
true? Was it real? The son dies not very far from where the
father died twelve years earlier. |
| Had
Chalino come for his son egotistically or had el destino always
been written this way? Were my mother’s words true “Que en
esta vida, uno necesita mas suerte que dinero”? Either way,
Adan had now gone to the real life to meet his father while
his mother and fans now live with the agony that will only
soothe through time—but not really. This death will always
be remembered by a life taken too early. Adan’s last song
was even more fitting: Nadie Es Eterno. In hindsight, he has
now begun to live for he will be eternal like his father,
especially in Los Angeles were Mexicans are always the brunt
of negativity. Adan provided a soulful connection like his
father Chalino to being Mexican. Que descanse en paz Adan
“Chalinillo El Compita” Sanchez! |
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