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“In Mexico people think of me as a


singer-songwriter,” Downs says. “But in spite of all I see here, all the bad things, I have faith in life and humanity. I haven’t lost that faith.”


That faith has carried her along her own musical path for more than two decades now, discovering more and more of her Mexican soul. In the early days Downs was often compared to painter Frida Kahlo. That happens less often these days, but Kahlo’s mother was part indigenous and her father was from another country (Ger- many). True, too, that Downs and Kahlo have both explored what it means to be Mexican, holding up a mirror to the country and showing both its beauty and its ugliness in unflinching ways.


But Downs isn’t Kahlo and she’s never tried to be, though she has the same love of her native land, its history and traditions, the same pride in it. Yet for all that she’s not


quite well at the moment. We’re going to try not to work too much for a while, just enjoy some time at home in Oaxaca. I’m still looking ahead, though. I’ve been work- ing on some songs in English. I’ve been thinking about some standards and maybe covers of some of the great boleros.”


“L


Ultimately, she admits, “It’s Mexican music that keeps me excited. But I love singing with just a guitar, the way I did when I started out, playing rancheras. That gives


going to restrict herself. Once the current stretch of touring is over – dates in Spain, then a rare UK concert at the Royal Festival Hall at the start of June, followed by five more shows in America – there will be time to rest and make plans for the next album.


ast year was very busy,” she says, “but this year hasn’t been too bad. My husband’s been playing on every gig and he’s doing


me as much joy as being up on a stage with a band. But there’s so much I still want to do: I want to discover hip-hop more, to find a rhythm for it in Spanish, to make it more poetic and take away all the misogyny.”


Unfinished business is healthy. It keeps an artist hungry and eager and forms a good focus and wall against the sorrows life brings. She’s proved herself to be an artist whose work has blossomed and matured as she’s had more chances, and that commer- cial success doesn’t have to equate to vapid content. She’s more political than ever, in a country where the 21st Century and the 19th still live side by side.


“This concern, who we are, how respon-


sibly we live here… I wish we had a solution as to how we can organise and make it all better.” But the faith persists that it will hap- pen. “Remember your dreams,” she says, “it’s there where you walk.”


www.liladowns.com F


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