RMetalBroad, ohmija: Lila Downs is a Mexican...

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ohmija:

Lila Downs is a Mexican singer-songwriter. She performs her own compositions as well as tapping into Mexican traditional and popular music.
She also incorporates indigenous Mexican influences and has recorded songs in indigenous languages .
Lila Downs was born on September 19, 1968 in Tlaxiaco, Mexico, the daughter of Anita Sanchez, a Mixtec cabaret singer and Allen Downs, a British-American professor of art and cinematographer from Minnesota. From an early age Lila showed interest in music; at the age of eight she began singing rancheros and other traditional Mexican songs. She began her musical career singing with mariachis. At fourteen she moved to the United States with her parents.
She studied voice in Los Angeles and learned English, which her father helped her to perfect. When she was 16 her father died and after this event she decided to return to her native Tlaxiaco with her mother.
One day while she was working in a store in the Mixtec mountains a man came in to ask her to translate his son’s death certificate. She read that he had drowned trying to cross the border into the United States. This so deeply affected her that it continued to influence her work throughout her career. She talked about this in an NPR interview Lila Downs: ‘Border.’
Although today Downs is proud of her origins there was a time when she felt shame regarding her Native American roots. “I was embarrassed to have Indian blood. I was embarrassed that my mother spoke her language in public.” This lead her on a path to find herself, which included dropping out of college, dying her hair blonde and following the band, The Grateful Dead. After some time Downs found herself back in Oaxaca working at her mother’s auto parts store where she met her future husband and musical collaborator, Paul Cohen.
Downs studied Anthropology and Voice at the University of Minnesota and attended the Benito Juárez Autonomous University of Oaxaca to complete her studies. - excerpts via Wikipedia
“I learned classical music,” Downs relates. “But I felt so distant from this because the training pushed me away from the direction I felt I had to go-I wasn’t being true to what I was. The reason I dropped out of school was the rigid nature of the classical tradition, not being able to express myself with freedom. Slowly I realized [performing] the music from Oaxaca was what I wanted to do.”

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Lila Downs’ journey of self-discovery and overcoming her own cultural shame is something that many Latinos (and other people of color) go through in their own lives.

Lila Downs is a Mexican singer-songwriter. She performs her own compositions as well as tapping into Mexican traditional and popular music.

She also incorporates indigenous Mexican influences and has recorded songs in indigenous languages .

Lila Downs was born on September 19, 1968 in Tlaxiaco, Mexico, the daughter of Anita Sanchez, a Mixtec cabaret singer and Allen Downs, a British-American professor of art and cinematographer from Minnesota. From an early age Lila showed interest in music; at the age of eight she began singing rancheros and other traditional Mexican songs. She began her musical career singing with mariachis. At fourteen she moved to the United States with her parents.

She studied voice in Los Angeles and learned English, which her father helped her to perfect. When she was 16 her father died and after this event she decided to return to her native Tlaxiaco with her mother.

One day while she was working in a store in the Mixtec mountains a man came in to ask her to translate his son’s death certificate. She read that he had drowned trying to cross the border into the United States. This so deeply affected her that it continued to influence her work throughout her career. She talked about this in an NPR interview Lila Downs: ‘Border.’

Although today Downs is proud of her origins there was a time when she felt shame regarding her Native American roots. “I was embarrassed to have Indian blood. I was embarrassed that my mother spoke her language in public.” This lead her on a path to find herself, which included dropping out of college, dying her hair blonde and following the band, The Grateful Dead. After some time Downs found herself back in Oaxaca working at her mother’s auto parts store where she met her future husband and musical collaborator, Paul Cohen.

Downs studied Anthropology and Voice at the University of Minnesota and attended the Benito Juárez Autonomous University of Oaxaca to complete her studies. - excerpts via Wikipedia

“I learned classical music,” Downs relates. “But I felt so distant from this because the training pushed me away from the direction I felt I had to go-I wasn’t being true to what I was. The reason I dropped out of school was the rigid nature of the classical tradition, not being able to express myself with freedom. Slowly I realized [performing] the music from Oaxaca was what I wanted to do.”

————————————————

Lila Downs’ journey of self-discovery and overcoming her own cultural shame is something that many Latinos (and other people of color) go through in their own lives.