Grammy-winning singer Lila Downs celebrates Día de los Muertos at Segerstrom Center
Singer songwriter Lila Downs has won a Grammy in the category of Best Música Mexicana Album and five Latin Grammys in the categories of Best Folk Album and Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album. But categorizing Downs’ music isn’t so simple. The Mexican American artist grew up splitting her time between Oaxaca with her Mixtecan mother and Minnesota with her Scottish American father and originally studied opera. She draws inspiration from many influences.
“My influences in the opera scene, I think Jessye Norman was someone very important because I have a lower, contralto voice, and in folk music, Mercedes Sosa,” said Downs in an interview with TimesOC. “In Mexican music, Lola Beltrán, and of course as jazz performers, Sarah Vaughan and Billie Holiday.”
Her music has been described as Latin but also has elements of son jarocho, ranchero, cumbia and bolero along with pop sensibilities and elements of rock, reggae and jazz. No matter how her music is labeled, Downs voice is at the center.
“I believe that I am a singer of roots music but also of the time that I am living in, and a trying to find beauty in different forms of expression in the voice,” said Downs. “The voice is very precious to me in all its capacity, and so it is centered around that.”
On Oct. 11, Downs comes to Segerstrom Center for the Arts in Costa Mesa for a special Día De Los Muertos concert. The one-night-only performance will highlight Downs’ talent for emotional storytelling through song and music that transcends language barriers.
“It is such a privilege to be a singer, a performer, a creator in the arts,” said Downs. “I am very lucky and fortune to have this profession, and I really blossom when I am able to sing on the stage.”
Downs often uses songs to tell stories and has leveraged her music as a platform for her activism throughout her career.
“At one point, I decided to compose and sing songs that narrated important causes to me, about women, about indigenous women, about being a woman, of course, and violence against women, which is something that is taboo and was not easy, and still isn’t, to sing about.”
Her 2004 album, “One Blood,” for example, includes a song about human rights lawyer Digna Ochoa, titled “Dignificada.” Ochoa was assassinated in her office in Mexico City.
“Sometimes, I believe it is really necessary to continue doing songs that are about difficult cases,” said Downs.
In 2009, Downs joined Salma Hayek in representing Mexico at a worldwide campaign of the One Drop foundation, a group dedicated to preserving water. In 2004, she released an updated version of “La Cucaracha” that reflected the U.S.-led war in Iraq, and her 2001 song “Border (La Linea)” is dedicated to Mexican migrant workers. She is also passionate about the indigenous peoples of Oaxaca and draws on her own Mixtec heritage to tell their stories.
“Immigration is one of these issues that is very important for me to talk about, party because I was a privileged person and went back and forth between borders,” said Downs. “My indigenous Mixtec background, my national Mexican one and being a Mexican American in the U.S. To now be able to talk about these issues openly with the press when I am singing a song about a particular story that narrates some of these realities is important because then the dialogue opens up.”
Downs said she is looking forward to returning to Segerstrom and promises the audience a special night.
“The times that we have been able to perform at Segerstrom, it has always been a wonderful experience and beautiful crowd. I love to come and perform there, and I am really looking forward to bringing something new and special.”
Tickets for Lila Downs Oct. 11 performance at Segerstrom Center for the Arts start at $39 and can be found at scfta.org.
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