album rating: ★★★★★
Genre: World music / Mexican folk / cumbia / ranchera / son / mariachi / hip-hop / klezmer. Balas y Chocolate ('Bullets and Chocolate') is the eleventh studio album by Lila Downs (born Ana Lila Downs Sánchez, Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca, 1968), the Mexican-American singer and cultural activist of Mixtec and Scottish-American descent who has spent three decades preserving and reimagining indigenous Mexican music alongside an engaged political songwriting practice. The album emerged from a deeply personal context: Downs and her husband, saxophonist, arranger and producer Paul Cohen, began writing the songs after Cohen was told he had a serious heart condition and might have only a short time to live. The album is dedicated to the current condition of Mexico — the violence of the drug war, the disappearance of 43 students in Ayotzinapa, migration, environmental destruction — juxtaposing the Day of the Dead's celebration of life against a landscape of death. Its sound is richly eclectic: mariachi, cumbia, hip-hop, son, ranchera, klezmer and Balkan brass are all present. Guests include Juanes on the duet 'La Patria Madrina' and Juan Gabriel, whose classic 'La Farsante' is covered here. The album's title captures the duality: bullets for violence and destruction, chocolate for Mexico's ancestral gift to the world and the sweetness of life.
Label: RCA Records (Mexico / USA), released 24 March 2015 (Mexico) and 14 April 2015 (USA).
Producers: Lila Downs and Paul Cohen (directors / co-producers throughout); individual track producers and engineers include Aneiro Taño, Rodolfo Vázquez, Joey Benjamin and Jean Rodríguez.
Recording studio: Recorded in Mexico (primary sessions); additional recording in the USA.
Critical reception: Balas y Chocolate was received as one of the most important albums of Downs's career. It was listed by iTunes as one of the year's best world music releases for 2015, named one of the UK Sunday Times Best Albums of the Year, and selected as Best Album of the Year by Songlines Magazine, where Downs appeared on the cover of the June 2016 issue. FolkWorks praised its fusion of 'cumbia and Balkan brass interacting with Mexican themes and styles.' The Barnes & Noble editorial described it as 'an act of resistance against the powers of darkness' and 'a statement of profound faith in humanity's future.'
Commercial success: The album was certified gold on release and won the Latin Grammy Award for Best Folk Album. It supported the Balas y Chocolate World Tour, which visited Mexico, the USA, Canada, Europe and South America. Lila Downs has received a total of one Grammy, five Latin Grammys and has a star on the Walk of Fame at Mexico City's Auditorio Nacional.
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