Lhasa de Sela

Lhasa de Sela’s debut album La Llorona confused many critics when it was released in 1997. They found it difficult to categorize this girl from Quebec, born of a Mexican father and an American mother in the United States, who sang in Spanish to a music they could not put a name to.

Along with her sisters, Lhasa spent her entire childhood living in the family bus, travelling back and forth across the U.S.-Mexican border. When you listen to Lhasa’s music, you realize that the travelling not only shaped her youth, but that it also distorted her vision of the world and her conception of time in quite a delightful way.

On her second album, The Living Road, she was painfully eloquent when expressing herself in Spanish, while also playing with the sinuous lines of English and the distinct tones of the French language. The three tongues were loosened as never before by the unique grace of a style of songwriting that knows no boundaries.

Lhasa’s third album Lhasa was released in April 2009 in Canada and Europe, but the proposed tour for its release was cancelled when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Following a 21-month-long battle with the disease, Lhasa died, age 37, on the evening of January 1, 2010, at her home in Montreal.