Lila Downs Review - Mexican-American Singer Wows the Crowd with a Uniquely Entertaining Show John Lewis - The Guardian
go to original June 3, 2016

Remarkable … Lila Downs (Elena Pardo)

The show starts with Lila Downs – resplendent in a flowery yellow dress and a pair of crazily high white heels – opening a bottle of tequila. She pours a drop on the floor (“as is traditional among native American communities in Oaxaca, Mexico, as a show of thanks to Mother Earth”), swigs from it and then passes it around the audience to loud cheers. It’s a triumphant start to a show that never puts a foot wrong.

Downs’s latest album, Balas y Chocolate (Bullets and Chocolate), covers some harrowing aspects of life in contemporary Mexico – drug cartels, the disappearances of students, the murder of investigative journalists – but, in concert, she never forgets her duties as an entertainer.

Over the course of two hours, the Mexican-American singer (and songwriter, actor and activist) is hilarious and heartbreaking, raucous and ridiculous. She impersonates a cooing dove. She dances like an iguana. She dons a huge sombrero to pay tribute to Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata. She covers herself in a shawl to sing songs of death and mourning. A huge screen behind her displays accompanying footage – song lyrics, Day of the Dead-themed animations and atmospheric films of Central America.

Downs trained as an opera singer and has a remarkable voice. Technically she’d be called a contralto, but her chest voice is as low as many male baritones. She can hold notes for a ludicrous length of time, and can throw in vocal effects – growls, rolled Rs, eerie falsettos – that make her androgynous, almost superhuman three-octave range sound conversational.

It’s possibly why she has such an extraordinary relationship with her audience. They pose for selfies with her while she’s singing. They scream her name, leap on to the stage with Mexican flags, pass her gifts, and conduct conversations with her (in Spanish) between songs. Long before the encore, the entire theatre is on its feet.

Read the rest at The Guardian

Possessed of one of the most extraordinary voices in world music, Lila Downs is as much of a performance artist as a singer. Her repertoire which can range from traditional to original generally references her native Mexican heritage. In this interview, she discusses her childhood in Mexico, growing up the daughter of a mixed marriage, and her eventual turn to topical songs inspired by the music of Mercedes Sosa. (Amnesty International USA)

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