Lila Downs has a new look. You can tell although the conversation has not yet reached the topic of love. She talks about her house in Oaxaca, the beautiful colonial city where she has lived for many years, her children Benito and Vanessa and her mother, who lives with her but who has her own kitchen.

“Yes, because if not, there are wars,” says the singer-songwriter, daughter of Allen Downs, a university art professor, filmmaker and painter originally from Minnesota, and Anastasia Sánchez, a Mixtec indigenous woman who in her youth made a living singing in public places in Mexico City and Veracruz.

Then, the conversation turns to Álex Cuba, the Cuban singer-songwriter who produced “Cambias mi mundo”, Lila's new album that is released today and which establishes her as an author, since it is the first time in her more than 30 years of career that she writes all the songs on her album.

“We had a lot of fun,” said the artist about her work with Álex, with whom she recorded “The Garden of Pleasure,” a song that is part of “Cambias mi mundo” and that talks about caring for the environment and how sometimes valuable objects are wasted. “We really enjoyed doing ‘Tumba 7’ because of its rhythm, and of course ‘El Jardín del Pleasure’, a rumba that he was very excited about.”

In addition to this collaboration, Lila has as guests Leonel García on “Amo-te” and Mexican-American rapper Snow Tha Product on “Cambias mi mundo”. In the latter case, Lila likes to collaborate with performers who belong to a newer generation than hers because she notices that people of all ages attend their concerts.

“I enjoy the privilege of being a music that is partly from folklore, from the people, from legends,” he said. “I have also been very privileged that since my career began there have always been children [at my concerts] and that enriches me a lot.”

When it comes to love, Lila can't complain. After the death in 2022 of her husband Paul Cohen, who was a saxophonist and director of her band, the artist has already given herself new opportunities in love. Although for now there is nothing formal yet.

She dated Iván Días, a well-known Portuguese film producer and director, for a time, but their intense personalities, as well as the distance, did not help.

“But the beautiful thing about all this is that I think that returning to life and believing in yourself again, that is what awakened me to having love in my life,” said Lila, 57 years old. “It means focusing on my ideas again, believing in myself.”

That, for her, is forgotten when you have a partner for so long, as was the case with Paul. He is currently dating a person with whom there are no plans for anything other than giving each other company and having fun times.

But the result of these interactions of the heart is that strength and confidence returned to Lila, and not only in the way of feeling, but also in the way of interpreting. She considers that since she comes from a classical musical school, she used to be a more controlled, more structured and less free performer.

“I think I let go, I let go more,” he said. "It's not that I have stopped learning, not at all; on the contrary [...] but I think that now I sing more freely, more who I am; and how sad in a certain way that it came to this moment, but it is also incredible, because it is like renewing yourself at fifty years old."

This month Lila began a tour that brings her to cities in Mexico, Canada, Europe and the United States. It will be in New York in July and in Los Angeles in October. It will close its tour on November 1 at the National Auditorium in Mexico City to celebrate with its people, in what is already a tradition for it every year, the Day of the Dead.