Lila Downs
Crossing Borders

by Kerri Hikida

Whole Life Times, October 2003

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This passionate Mexican/American singer wants to make people do more than feel the music; she wants them to think. Photo Credit: Tom Le Goff

The 2,000-mile Mexican border looms like the Great Wall to aspiring émigrés. While the U.S. government creates immigration policies to make this wall ever more impenetrable, people continue to risk their lives to come to America, traversing increasingly treacherous terrain in search of a better life.

Though singer Lila Downs never had to enter the land of the free under such extreme circumstance, the human toll of desperate illegal immigration is not lost on her. Downs has spent much of her musical career looking to build bridges: between countries, between musical genres, between Mexicans and Indians, and between competing sides of her own bi-cultural identity.

The child of a Mixtec Indian mother and American father who endured a long-distance marriage, Downs spent her childhood shuffling between homes in Minnesota and the Southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. Her mixed bloodlines so perplexed her in her teen years that at 16, she died her hair blonde for shame of her Indian blood.

Today, Downs is a woman who has found her power. She's earned a place in the world music pantheon and she radiates strength of character, integrity and ethnic pride. On the 2001 Border recording, and her other two albums, the 2000 Tree of Life and 1999's La Sandunga (all from Narada) Downs introduced a repertoire of indigenous songs in Mixtec, Zapotec, Maya and Nahuatl Indian dialects. Traditional Mexican standards were in the mix as well, drawing from genres such as rancheras (country songs) and boleros (romantic ballads). Infusing the originals with jazz and blues elements and new vocal styling made them more contemporary, and more Lila.

In her original material, Downs imparts social commentary on issues that touch her heart — the plight of Latina workers and migrants, the questionable treatment of indigenous Mexicans in their own country. Border, her most socially inspired work to date, was dedicated to migrants who perished crossing the border.

"Never before, really, has there been such respect for, and attention to the musical legacy of indigenous Mexico," said Betto Arcos, former musical director for KPFK who now helps manage Downs' career. "It's the first time a singer of such recognition is bringing attention to the plight of indigenous peoples in Mexico, the many different indigenous cultures of Mexico, their languages, their vibrancy, their vitality. In particular, she highlights the cultures where she comes from in Oaxaca, but she has managed to also a fan base across not just Mexico, but the U.S. and Europe for people who care about indigenous cultures and languages."

Downs agreed. "I think I am writing for people who have concerns about justice and freedom and equality — and also spirituality and beauty and love. The variety of people listening to our music is just tremendous — Latin, Puerto Rican, Mexican, Mexican American, Nordic people, French, Spanish, African Americans, Chinese Americans... it really is the ideal."

Finding Her Rhythm
Downs' father, a cinematographer/painter of Scottish background, came to Mexico to make a documentary about the blue-winged teal's annual migration from Canada to the Yucatan Peninsula. He soon met Downs' mother, a Mixtec-Indian woman and singer in Mexico City. As a child, Downs' mother introduced her to opera and Mexican music, while her father was more likely to crank out John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Bob Dylan.

At the age of 16, Lila found herself fatherless. After his death, she began spending all her time with the Oaxacan side of her family, rediscovering the rich history and culture that were an important part of her early life but had been pushed away by self-loathing.

Downs studied opera and planned on becoming a professional opera soloist. But a wild wind blew through, altering her course and sending her down another path — following the Grateful Dead. It was a liberating experience for the young singer.

"The Grateful Dead was a tool through which I could be free, relax and let loose, let my roots go black," she recalled. "It was about exploring and learning through life; it was a rebirth for me."

Eventually becoming disenchanted with the Deadhead scene, she returned to singing and hooked up with the man who became her husband — expatriate saxophone player Paul Cohen. Together, they began to play small clubs in Oaxaca City, a Mexican cultural mecca. It was there that she first crossed paths with Arcos, who was to play a huge role in making her known in the U.S.

"I met Lila back in 1996 when she was doing three or four nights a week at a small club in Oaxaca City," recalled Arcos. "She didn't have a record yet; she was just starting out." Two years later they met again via telephone. Downs asked Arcos to help her find a concert venue in Los Angeles.

With Downs still an unknown entity in America, Arcos was shut down left and right in the L.A. club circuit. Finally, the now defunct Luna Park decided to take a chance.

The day before the show, Luna Park called asking to book an additional date. The Lila Downs show had sold out, thanks to feature articles in the L.A. Times and La Opinion.

In 1999, Arcos recommended Downs to Judy Mitoma, director of the World Festival of Sacred Music. Mitoma tapped Downs to play the Hollywood Bowl, where she earned rave reviews.

"That," said Arcos, "put her on the world map."

Now people sought Downs out. She sang in the film Frida and contributed five songs to the soundtrack. This past March, she performed at the Academy Awards with Brazilian superstar Caetano Veloso, bringing her increased notoriety in Mexico and the U.S. Sales for Border rose dramatically, and Narada re-released Downs' first album La Sandunga on Sept. 30 to satisfy her eager new fans. A new album is due in spring 2004, and Downs gets more performance requests than she can fulfill.

Spirit of the Grandmother
Downs' appearance has been likened to Frida Kahlo's, and she is definitely a fan of the Mexican painter. But as far as real influences go, Downs' own grandmother comes in first.

"My grandmother was a farmer who would tell me about the green serpent, Nine Winds (also known as Queztlcoatl in its Aztec manifestation), who would come from the sky and bring water. She was always so happy we just had a roof over our heads, and if we had a car, that was enough. The ambition we have [for more] was kind of a sin in her mind."

Downs' grandmother also comes through sometimes in Downs' performances, which she says have become like ritual/spiritual occasions. Downs is famous for putting her heart and soul into her live shows — she received a standing ovation for her performance at the World Festival of Sacred Music in 1999.

"I never considered myself a very religious person, but I can see my grandmother in myself coming through. I've only found that through music. It's the moment when these people are reaching out to really feel something through this tremendous thing that music is, that is so much larger than any of us. I look at it like I'm only a conduit through which this voice has to come out."

Where the Songs Begin
The first song Downs ever penned was a corrido inspired by a Mexican man who died trying to cross the border from Mexico into the United States. Accompanied by guitar, corridos are storytelling ballads about outlaws, heroes and anti-heroes played throughout Mexico.

Downs indulged her passion for corrido on her upcoming album as well. One haunting tune recounts the loss of Digna Ochoa, a lawyer who was mysteriously found dead in her office after fighting for Indian rights in Chiapas, Oaxaca and Guerrero.

"People investigating her death claim it was suicide, yet the bullet went first into her leg and then her head, [making it seem] highly unlikely it was suicide," Downs said. "So I wrote about this, and also about women who are being killed on the borders. It's a really dark subject, yet I always find a way to bring light to it and somehow bring the issues to people who are interested in them. Music has the power of bringing attention to these things."

Another upcoming song, "Little Snake," is based on an Afro-mestizo song Downs heard in the coastal area of Oaxaca. African slaves intermarried with Indian peoples there and infused their musical influences into the mix, she said. In her interpretive style that also respects tradition, Downs expanded the original song, adding her personal touch.

"The song says 'Little snake, little snake, please don't bite me...' I wrote several lyrics and added to it: 'At the edge of the ocean I'm dancing, and Death is watching me, but I'm rattling like a rattlesnake' — lyrics that are kind of funny and playful."

The Language of Art
The information age has made it difficult for remote Mexican villages to retain their unique character. But while jeans and Adidas may be the international uniform, Downs often wears clothing made from traditional textiles when performing on stage. She studied weaving with a neighboring Oaxacan tribe, the Triqui, and their indigenous Mexican weaving techniques influence and inform her art. Weaving is one way tribes maintain their unique identity, Downs explained.

"I was very fortunate to study weaving with this group of women and learn about their symbols, [which] date from pre-Columbian times. There are symbols like the flower of corn, for example, or the legend of the rabbit or the moon. There are more modern patterns as well, [that show] the roads coming in for the first time, or revolutionary men and women with their guns. It's a kind of resistance [against] the national culture within their community, through the textiles they wear.

"It really caught me about language and the power of art, and how much you can say or resist [through art]. What I'm trying to do musically is the same. There are many living languages in Mexico today. Many of the people who come here and work in the restaurants and in the fields are speaking languages that go back thousands of years; they are surviving, and they are Indian."

The metaphors used in the various tribal languages are quite beautiful and indicate a respect for nature, Downs continued. Still, many poor communities who have come to the U.S. to work may have lost that knowledge. For others, the old ways can get lost because the striving for upward mobility through material goods has become more pervasive. A "very curious thing, but it's happening all over the world," she lamented.

Despite her tendency toward social/political commentary in her songs, Downs declined to articulate a stance on immigration, saying only, "I think there are companies that could do a little bit better in paying more fairly." Clearly she is more comfortable expressing herself through her songs.

Downs fervently hopes that her music makes a difference in the world.

"I live to make a ripple," she said. "I think it's part of our [purpose] as human beings to leave a little sign, a little stone, a little grain of sand that proves we were here. I hope our music makes people think."

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