Lila Downs

**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.

### 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)

## Other websites

- Official

## Infobox (musical artist)

- **name**: Lila Downs
- **img**: Lila Downs at Ferrocarril Museum.JPG
- **img capt**: FILO, november 2012 - Ferrocarril Museum of Oaxaca
- **background**: solo_singer
- **birth name**: Ana Lila Downs Sánchez
- **origin**: Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca, Mexico
- **instrument**: Singing, Voice
- **genre**: World music
- **occupation**: Entertainer
- **years active**: 1990–present
- **label**: Sony Music Latin