Music » Cumbia Music

World musician Lila Downs experienced a career renaissance thanks to her contributions to the 2002 Frida movie and soundtrack . After two well-received solo albums, the Narada label has reissued Downs' dramatic debut album, La Sandunga. The singer released the album independently in 1997, and it still sparkles with the immediacy and passion of a woman completely connected to and excited by her craft. Every song on La Sandunga, including the album's three bonus tracks, flows effortlessly into the next. It's as if the album was recorded without pause during one very creative recording session. Downs' Mixtec-Indian and American background is an obvious influence on her work. The album is peppered with lush strings and blaring horns. It's all anchored by Downs' wildly diverse vocal stylings, which even manage to spice up the oft-recorded album closer, "Besame Mucho." --Joey Guerra

Release Date: 2003-03-25, Audio CD, Fonovisa Inc.

Singer-songwriter Lila Downs uses these 15 compositions (both originals and covers) to explore the joys and sorrows experienced by Mexican immigrants who cross the border for a better life only to experience exploitation and racism in this country. A child of a Mixtec Indian mother and Anglo-American father, the talented Downs brings in a fresh perspective from two cultural worlds. She imbues the Mexican cumbia style--which is itself a variation on a Colombian form of dance music integrating Latin, Native American, and African styles--with blues, jazz, and even a little hip-hop as pre-Colombian and Mexican percussion nestles comfortably with strings and electric guitar, piano, and bass. Lila Downs is a wide-ranging singer who passionately expresses her melancholic subject matter without lapsing into melodrama, and with this album she crosses musical borders of her own. --Bryan Reesman

Release Date: 2001-06-19, Audio CD, Sony International

Release Date: 2003-09-23, Audio CD, Sony International

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