She exudes strength and presence. Her black hair, carefully gathered in stylish braids, acts as a beautiful tiara. The face of Lila Downs (Oaxaca, 55 years old), shaped by her Mixtec origins and marked features, is reminiscent of a pre-Hispanic deity. The Mexican singer, who has just landed from her native Oaxaca, is one of the artists who has best known how to combine present and past. History of Mexican song, which at no time leaves aside the most current styles.
A feminist to the core, a standard-bearer for indigenous rights and well-understood tradition, Downs arrives in Spain to embark on a tour that will see her share the stage with artists such as Rodrigo Cuevas (yesterday at La Laboral in Gijón), Ara Malikian (on the 10th in Granada and 12th at Starlite Occident), Mulatu Astatke (14th at Pirineos Sur) and Muchachito Bombo Infierno (15th at Alma Pedralbes). Downs presents her latest work, The Sancheza tribute that encapsulates the best of his work, looking at what he has been and what he is. And where his mother has always been present.
Title The Sanchezin some way, refers to Lila Downs’ maternal origins. Her mother’s name is Anita Sanchez. I understand that it is a way of vindicating her and making that affiliation known. Who is she? I had read that she was a cabaret singer.
Well, she says that the place where she started was a coffee shop. But my father said it was a canteen. So since childhood there were those two versions and they were always very free in that sense.
Was your mother protective?
My mother has always protected me. I think I’ve seen that a lot here too. Women protecting and being like the ones who shelter. The harsh reality many times. And my mother is a bit like that, but my mother is also a character, she is a natural biologist. She is always observing nature.
He lives with you, in his house in Oaxaca, and is 86 years old.
And now she is taking care of my children. Yes, she drives to the ranch and there they observe the worms, the chickens and the turkeys, because we have some little animals and the 16 dogs that she rescues. She is a character, my mother is a character. She is an artist; she makes clay objects, she makes collagesWe recently opened a restaurant in Oaxaca and she decorated several corners.
She always taught me to respect women. Since I was little, she would tell me: “Lila, I think that women should never speak ill of another woman.” And that was revolutionary in my childhood. I think that contributes a lot to making me the artist that I am.
She was married at 14, as was customary in indigenous communities of her generation, but she did not accept it.
After a few months, she ran away and went barefoot to Mexico City, because that was the custom at that time. We are about 14 hours away by car, so it took several days to walk to get there. There she worked with a Spanish family, her first job. That greatly influenced her outlook and how she raised me.
She then began singing a little, and she told me that she did it when she had a few drinks, because she didn’t have the courage to do it sober. She told me with much affection and respect: “I admire you because you’re not afraid to get up on stage and sing.” I was, but I found my husband, my accomplice from my youth, with whom I understood the constancy of music and Zen. I already had it by nature, but I didn’t understand the concept of doing it constantly to create and become another being through music.
What other female artists have influenced you? I think that figures like Lucha Reyes, Lola Beltrán and Flor Silvestre, who are not as well known here in Spain, were instrumental in the creation of Lila Downs.
Yes, La Lucha Reyes, not so much in her way of singing, but as a character, because she was a woman who started singing at a time when men predominated. In addition, she started singing wild music and was an opera singer, something that I also did: I studied opera and then became a popular singer.
She toured Europe as an opera singer, but then she became a mythical character, wearing the Mexican China costume and always with the rebozo. She was from Jalisco, a state with a strong identity. That marked me forever. Also, I liked to see her in short films where she put herself on the same level as men. I said, I love that. So she had a great influence on me.
And Lola Beltran?
I admired her a lot from the vocal side and also because I have a deep tone that I inherited from my mother. Leonard Bernstein did a whole anthropological series about how we inherit music, human beings and the first sounds of our lives. My mother has a deep voice and my grandmother also spoke with a deep voice. It is a bit unusual in Mexico, since women usually speak higher and with softer tones.
I loved the films with Lola and Flor Silvestre. I watched those films and said: “I want to be in that world, riding among the magueys and start a song.” I had a love affair with those movies. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the chance to meet her. But then Mercedes Sosa started to take a very important place in my life. I was able to record with her. That changed the direction of my music, because I realized that you can compose songs with conviction, and that changes everything.
You have been exposed to a multitude of styles. Cumbias, rancheras, boleros, corridos. And all at a stratospheric level. I understand that as an anthropologist, this type of approach must be very attractive to you.
Of course, because it is the variety of our cultural expression and also our environment, our childhood, where we come from. I suffered a lot when I stopped listening to cumbia when I went to the United States. I missed the town’s loudspeakers. All kinds of music and advertisements were played on those loudspeakers.
In my town, people listened to the cumbias of Rigo Tovar. My friends said: “How horrible! Rigo Tovar, how shameful,” because it was associated with the working classes. But when I was away, I began to appreciate that music. People also listened to it at home and my aunts and relatives who came to stay would also play it. So I began to compose and respect cumbia. It was difficult for me, because the musicians I worked with would say: “Cumbia? How are you going to sing cumbia? We studied at the conservatory to return to cumbia.” It was a difficult process, but it has been a beautiful path.
And now, how do you handle and receive artists like Peso Pluma, who are from younger generations, but who also take tradition, rework it and make it their own? In a way, Lila Downs is a pioneer in all of this.
I love that these young people from the north are taking up the corrido again. It’s something that musicians like me, who are always looking for tradition, have tried to work on, especially the harmonies and rhythms of the corrido and the ranchera. They are very difficult to work on, so mixing it with hip hop and bluesy harmonies is wonderful. I love the sound, I’m passionate about it. I also like the stories of illegality, which are characteristic of the corrido. What I don’t like is the misogyny. That’s already terrible and we have to keep saying that it’s not worth it.
You have lived in the United States and Mexico, and you earned your degree in Anthropology in Minnesota in the mid-nineties. How do you see the situation in both countries now that you also live in Mexico? Has anything changed in relation to women?
I have seen many musicians, people and women come back from a time when as an artist you couldn’t talk about certain topics. Now we can talk about them freely. But I have also seen that difficult situations continue to exist for women, especially in rural contexts. That is why I continue to fight and I do concerts in support of indigenous and mestizo women. I collaborate on a scholarship where I help these young women.
It has been my contribution to a very interesting project in which tutoring is the most important part. If you think about it, the worlds are so different between the indigenous world, with its conception of life, and the world of the cities, where the universities are. These young women want to enter the academic world, but if they don’t have someone who can translate these social and cultural differences for them, it won’t work. This project does that on a voluntary basis, and I love participating in voluntary projects. I think that’s how we can change the world.
In 2024, it will be 30 years since his first album, Offering. There is also another anniversary of reference, a decade ago Rootalongside Niña Pastori and Soledad Pastorutti, an important work in your long career. How do you remember that Lila Downs?
I am very happy because I have met again with that Lila from before. I think that time is the gift that time gives us, looking back if you have the time to do it. One has to fight for one’s time and decide on that, and I think that it does us all good, Mother Earth too, to take the time.
It was like in ancient times, in the times of our grandmothers. There is something very beautiful in the way they tell us things were. They were so natural, we didn’t fight with nature. Although I will tell you that my grandmother was very happy with her plastic bags and buckets. She would say: “This is the good one, daughter, because this is how you can store corn, beans, all the things you need to store in case the revolution comes.” She always said that. But well, it’s a balance. The secret of life.
It is surprising that with how prepared she is for absolutely everything, she was not so involved in the production of her albums until this last one, The SanchezHow has it been to take ownership of what is initially yours? How has this process of getting to know, experimenting and working around production been?
It’s been a learning process with my husband, but also a process of distancing myself, of realizing my independence and my anger with society and with him. In a couple, sometimes there are two alphas, and that becomes complicated. These are life lessons that make you realize that you really want to do things yourself.
Curiously, I lost my husband and this album is the most independent. Before he died, he decided that jazz was his thing, and that’s why we opened this restaurant that has a stage upstairs, where he performed with his jazz group. It was nice because we became independent as human beings, each one on his own artistic path.
And finally, I notice that you pay a lot of attention to the details of your clothing. I understand that the clothes you wear are reminiscent of a strong textile tradition in Mexico. How do you establish links with these crafts?
My childhood is full of memories of this rebozo in which my grandmother carried me. It is a bobble rebozo, very special because of its point and its weave. It is dyed and uses the licat or tie-dye technique, where it is tied and then loosened to create these designs. The huipil I wear is also dyed, with indigo from the Sierra Juárez and comes from a beautiful tradition.
I love it because it is so sober, unlike other colorful garments. It is elegant, fine and beautiful, made of cotton woven on a pedal loom. And what I am carrying in my arms is a work by the master Toledo, who left his legacy at the IAGO, the Institute of Graphic Arts of Oaxaca. In the city of Oaxaca, there are wonderful art books accessible to any student. In addition, the building is beautiful and is located on the tourist trail of my land. There they have pieces that he designed, covered in gold leaf but made of leather.
I saw that you have a tattoo on your forearm that says “respect.” Do you have any others?
I have one more that I got when I went to New Zealand with the Maori, as a souvenir of the original. According to anthropologists, they were the first to have permanent tattoos. So here’s the souvenir.
