Griselda Blanco RIP
So Long and Thanks for All the Cocaine
By Billy CorbenGriselda Blanco (aka La Madrina, the Godmother, the Black Widow, Cocaine Cowgirl, Queenpin) was killed outside a butcher shop in Medellín, Colombia at 3 PM Monday when two men on a motorcycle fired two shots into her head with a revolver.
Born in the poverty-stricken Medellín mountains—like her childhood friend Pablo Escobar—she grew up during La Violencia, Colombia’s vicious civil war, and didn’t waste any time breaking into the murder business. As legend has it, at age 11 she kidnapped a young boy for ransom. When his wealthy valley parents failed to pay, she killed him.
Later in life, years of prostitution and counterfeiting preceded a series of, shall we say, failed marriages. Her ‘Black Widow’ sobriquet was earned by murdering (or ordering the murder of) multiple husbands. It was her relationship with these men, her notorious temper, and her early connection to Escobar that gave her an advantage in the otherwise male-dominated cocaine trade.
Click through to Vice to see a bunch more photos, it’s bizarre but before she died she totally looked like a man. I loved that she named one of her sons Michael Corleone.
DJ Derek’s last gig, Don Letts & me n John, Blackpool Cricket Club, 3pm til midnight, Sunday 23rd June!!!
As played on the legendary John Peel show sometime in 1995. Spencer Martin & Shaun Toft were good friends of mine, so i was lucky enough to get a signed copy…
For anyone following the long-running Canopy & Matrix/Space Records saga on here, someone has kindly now posted Youtube clips of all the tracks off the 12”…Start here with “Arkine’s Lost”, and check out the other two as well, as they are also groovesome…
