World Music: Lila Downs, "Malinche"
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(Mexico/USA) When Cortez came to conquor, it was Malinche, originally given to him with twenty other female slaves who became his most trusted interpreter and paramour. As such, she was an amazing woman who commanded respectand even reverence, among the Spanish who were in the business of denigrating and destroying the native people. She spoke all three indigenous languages as well as Spanish, and was reportedly a woman of striking looks and commanding carriage. Today, the figure of La Malinche is both revered and hated in Mexico-- as a powerful woman and mother of the Mestizo line ( she had a son with Cortez), and also as a traitor to her own people. In writing the song "Malinche" Lila Downs drew on her own mixed lineage-- an indigenous mother and American father-- and her own current marriage to an American to make a case for Malinche as a diplomat; one who understood the realities of different worlds. It's a serious subject, but the animation that swirls around the live performance is upbeat and fun, with various fruits and vegetables morphing into valentines nestled inside a cooks hands.
-Download on iTunes
(Mexico/USA) When Cortez came to conquor, it was Malinche, originally given to him with twenty other female slaves who became his most trusted interpreter and paramour. As such, she was an amazing woman who commanded respectand even reverence, among the Spanish who were in the business of denigrating and destroying the native people. She spoke all three indigenous languages as well as Spanish, and was reportedly a woman of striking looks and commanding carriage. Today, the figure of La Malinche is both revered and hated in Mexico-- as a powerful woman and mother of the Mestizo line ( she had a son with Cortez), and also as a traitor to her own people. In writing the song "Malinche" Lila Downs drew on her own mixed lineage-- an indigenous mother and American father-- and her own current marriage to an American to make a case for Malinche as a diplomat; one who understood the realities of different worlds. It's a serious subject, but the animation that swirls around the live performance is upbeat and fun, with various fruits and vegetables morphing into valentines nestled inside a cooks hands.
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World Music: Lila Downs, "Malinche"
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