Lila Downs was born in 1968 in Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca, a state in southern Mexico; she grew up between the Sierra Madre mountains (Oaxaca) and Minnesota (USA). She began her musical career at the age of eight, performing mariachi songs. She studied vocal technique in Los Angeles and Fine Arts at an academy in Oaxaca. Later, she moved to Minnesota where she completed her vocal training and studied Anthropology at university.

His first musical successes came with the bands Los Cadetes de Yodoyuxi , a percussion group, and La Trova Serrana , achieving growing popularity among the Latino public in the US with his songs about the Zapotec community and its cultural values.

Recognized for rescuing the sounds of her land, Lila Downs' music and message have already reached the general public thanks to winning the Best Folk Album Award at the Latin Grammys with her album One Blood (Una Sangre) (2004) and her performance in Frida (2002), a film about the life of the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo starring Salma Hayek.

Lila Downs currently lives in Coyoacán and collaborates with musicians from Mexico, Canada, Cuba, Peru, Argentina, and Paraguay. In addition to performing her own compositions, she presents numerous versions of the vast repertoire of Mesoamerican music, singing in Mixtec, Zapotec, Maya, and Nahuatl.

DISCOGRAPHY
Offering, 1994
Azuláo. Live with Lila Downs, 1996
La Sandunga, 1999
Tree of Life, 2000
Border (La Línea), 2001
One Blood (Una Sangre), 2004
The Cantina (between drinks), 2006