Chanilo Sanchez (Rosalino Sánchez Félix), was born on August 30, 1960, in Las Flechas, a small town in Sinaloa Mexico. Sanches was a Mexican singer and songwriter who began the narcocorrido genre, which portrays the lives and stories of drug traffickers. He quickly grew to fame and became known as, “El Rey del Corrido” (The king of the corrido) and is considered one of the most influential narcocorrido singers.
Chanilo was the youngest of seven children of Santos Sanchez and Senorinna Felix. Chanilo’s life was not easy as he grew up poor and had a pretty difficult childhood. Chanilo then found himself leaving for Tijuana, in which people think that it could have been because he allegedly killed the guy that raped his sister. During his time in Tijuana, he worked as a coyote, smuggling immigrants into the United States. That same year, Chanilo crossed the border to start working in Oregon and later moved to LA to live with his aunt in Inglewood, California. In LA he would wash dishes, sell cars, and deal small quantities of marijuana and cocaine according to his friends. Later on, he met Marisela Vallegos through his cousin, Rosalba. In 1984, they got married with one baby on the way and later had a second child. Chanilo got inspired to compose his first corrido in 1984 when Armando, Chanilo’s brother, got shot and murdered in a hotel in Tijuana. Somewhere around this time, Chanilo got arrested, and that’s when he started making songs about his fellow inmates and anyone with a story worth telling to the world. He started to earn money and would be gifted guns and “presents” by his customers. Then a group of his customers recommended him to go to a recording studio in LA. He then started selling his cassette tapes in the back of his truck and stocking them at various stores. He connected with Pedro Rivera who had a recording studio called Cintas Acuario. That would be the place where Chanilo produced his corridos prohibidos (prohibited corridos) which were songs that talked about murders or drug dealers. This is where Chanilo began to grow to fame as he started getting booked to perform at clubs.
The 1992 Coachella Incident happened on January 25th when Chanilo was performing at the Plaza Los Arcos nightclub in the city of Coachella. Everything was going well until 32-year-old Eduardo Gallegos, who was drunk on alcohol and high on heroin, requested the song “El Gallo de Sinaloa”. Immediately after, Gallegos invited himself on stage, pointed a gun at Chanilo’s chest, and pulled the trigger 4 times. Chanilo had his own gun on him which he fired back at Gallegos, which didn’t result too well as a man dancing in the crowd was severely wounded in the crossfire, along with others. Galegos was wrestled to the ground by one of the bystanders where he then eventually shot himself in the face with his own pistol. Chanilo and Gallegos were both then hospitalized; Chanilo was released home after 11 days without charges since he had made a self-defense claim. Galegos was sent to prison where he was sentenced to 20 years to life.
A few months after the Coachella incident, Chanilo was handed a note while performing at the Salon Bugambilias in Culiacán. Many people believe that the note was a death threat, but it has yet to be confirmed. A video on YouTube shows Chanilo Sachez about to sing “Alma Enamorada,” when he reads the note and then crumples it up and wipes sweat off his face. After his performance, Chanilo drove away from the club with two of his brothers, his cousin, and several young women. They were then pulled over by a group of armed men in Chevrolet Suburbans, who showed them state police ID cards and told Chanilo that their commander wanted to see him. Chanilo agreed and left with them while the others stayed behind. The next day, around 6 in the morning, two farmers found Chalino’s body by an irrigation canal near the neighborhood of Los Laures, Culiacán; Chanilo was only 31 when he died, and he had so much ahead of him in life. They found him blindfolded and he had rope marks on his wrists and had been shot twice in the back of the head. Although Chanilo’s life ended really short, he was able to make a huge impact on the music industry as many songwriters nowadays use the same genre of music he popularized.
