Mexican balladeer Vega shot to death

A Mexican balladeer who refuted rumours of his death in an interview on Saturday was shot dead just hours later, the latest in a string ofslain Mexican musicians.

Sergio Vega, who also performed under the moniker El Shaka, was killed in his car Saturday night near Los Mochis in Mexico's northwestern Sinaloa state, according to police.

Officers have made no arrests and have no suspects.

Memorial services for Vega are taking place over the next few days in his home state of Sonora, according to the singer's agent, Ana Luisa Gomez. A funeral mass was celebrated on Monday.

The 40-year-old Vega, who lived in the U.S. in the 1980s before returning to Mexico in 1994,was a singer of romantic songs as well as narcocorridos, the genre of folk ballads inspired by Mexico's drug trade and crime life.

On Saturday, during an interview with an entertainment website, Vega admitted to increasing his personal security and discussed having to regularly refute rumours of his demise.

"It has happened to me for years now someone tells a radio station or a newspaper I have been killed, or suffered an accident," Vega told La Oreja website.

"And then I have to call my dear mother, who has heart trouble, to reassure her."

Vega was driving to a concert later on Saturday when another vehicle took pursuit and began shooting, Sergio Montiel Avila, a passenger in the car, told El Debate newspaper.

The gunfire wounded Vega and caused him to crash the car, while Avila escaped and hid. The assailants proceeded to shoot the injured Vega in the head and chest, he told the Mexican paper.

In the past few years, prominent Mexican musicians like Sergio Gomez have been among those killed amid a countrywide crackdown on drug cartels that has sparked thousands of drug-related slayings.

In January, Mexican politicians proposed a new law to prosecute musicians who perform songs that glorify drug trafficking or filmmakers behind movies that praise drug lords.