Lila Downs (September 9, 1968 in Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca, Mexico) is a Mexican/American singer-songwriter. She performs her own compositions as well as Mexican traditional and popular music. She also incorporates indigenous Mexican influences and have recorded songs in indigenous languages such as Mixtec, Zapotec, Maya, Nahuatl and P'urhépecha. Her albums are One Blood, Shake Away, and Sins and Miracles has won various Grammys and World Music Awards.

Early life 
Downs is the daughter of Mixtec cabaret singer Anita Sánchez and Allen Downs, a Scottish/English-American professor of art and cinematographer from Minnesota. She learned to sing at the age of four. She began to perform rancheras songs when she was 10 years old. Lila grew up partly in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, partly in the U.S. state of California as a teenager. She was 15 when she went to Performing Arts Institute of Oaxaca, where she studied music. She lived in Minnesota as an adult. She graduated from the University of Minnesota in voice and anthropology.

Career 

She later returned to Mexico where she learned to weave. Later, she began singing in the club scenes of Oaxaca and Philadelphia along with Paul Cohen, an American-born saxophonist. They began collaborating on songs that would slowly evolve into Downs' subsequent recordings. Cohen became both Downs' husband and her artistic director.

In recent years, Downs and her band have toured widely in Mexico, South America, the US and Europe. She was also heard in the soundtrack to the movie Frida in a song, "Burn it Blue", that was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song and that she performed at the 75th Academy Awards. Other songs that she performed on the soundtrack are "Benediction and Dream", "Estrella Oscura", and "La Llorona". Other movies in which her songs are featured include Maria Ripoll's 2001 Tortilla Soup, Patricia Cardoso's 2002 Real Women Have Curves and Carlos Saura's 2007 Fados. She was also invited to the Twelve Girls Band's concert in Shanghai, where she sang in French and English. Downs is currently based in Coyoacán, a borough of Mexico City.

On September 2, 2008, Lila Downs released Shake Away, her latest album of new material as well as featuring a few cover songs, including "I Envy The Wind" by Lucinda Williams and "I Would Never" by The Blue Nile. Downs also collaborated with artists like La Mari from Chambao and Enrique Bunbury from Héroes del Silencio. In 2010 she appeared on The Chieftains' album San Patricio.

Sins and Miracles is the most recent album by Lila Downs. It was released in 2011. It reached the top of the charts in Mexico, Germany, Argentina, Colombia, Spain and the United States. It also reached the top ten in other major markets. Downs did a tour for the album called the "Pecados y Milagros World Tour". The singles on Sins and Miracles are: "Palomo del Comalito", "Zapata se Queda" and "Mezcalito". The album and its singles received one Grammy Award. The main music genres which make up the album are pop, folk and ska. She has a contralto vocal range.

Discography

Studio albums 
 1999 – La Sandunga
 2000 – Tree of Life
 2001 – Border
 2004 – One Blood
 2006 – La Cantina
 2008 – Ojo de Culebra
 2011 – Pecados y Milagros
 2015 – Balas y Chocolate
 2017 – Salón Lágrimas Y Deseos

Live albums 
 1996 - Azulao: En Vivo con Lila Downs
 2010 – Lila Downs y La Misteriosa en París - Live à Fip

Compilations 
 2008 – The Very Best Of Lila Downs [CD]
 2012 – Canciones pa' Todo del Año

Other albums 
 1994 - Ofrenda
 1998 - Trazos

EP's 
 2007 - Live Session

DVD's 
 2006 – Loteria Cantada
 2008 – The Very Best Of/El Alma de Lila Downs [DVD]
 2010 – Lila Downs y La Misteriosa en París Live - à Fip [DVD]
 2011 – Pecados y Milagros (Deluxe Edition)

Notes

Other websites

 Official

1968 births
Living people
Mexican singer-songwriters
People from Oaxaca
Grammy Award winners
Latin Grammy Award winners