Natalia Lafourcade: Un Canto por México, Vol. 1 (2020)
This album’s story begins with the September 2017 Puebla earthquake, which in addition to causing destruction in Puebla, Morelos and the greater Mexico City area, also did damage to the Son Jarocho Documentation Center, a cultural building in Veracruz.
Singer-songwriter Natalia Lafourcade organized a November 2019 fundraiser concert, a sold-out 3-hour affair dubbed Un canto por México (A Song for Mexico) to aid in the center’s reconstruction.
The concert and her experience with the local community and the Veracruz musical style of folk music known as Son jarocho inspired the release of two albums, of which this is the first.
Musical guests include Los Cojolites, Jorge Drexler, Los Autenticos Decadentes, Carlos Rivera, Leonel García, Panteon Rococó, Emmanuel Del Real of the band Café Tacvba and the youth mariachi of Tecalitlán.
The album includes updated versions of previously released Lafourcade songs, Mexican traditionals, and a couple newly-written originals.
Among the new songs is “Mi Religión”, which won the Latin Grammy for Best Regional Mexican Song. It’s addictive chorus:
Music, you
My religion
A lifetime isn’t enough
To give you my love
Music, you
My downfall
A lifetime isn’t enough
To give you my love
The song is just one example of Natalia’s superior knack for lyrical phrasing. The consonants fall like a percussion instrument playing a polyrhythm.
Interpolating as it does traditional Mexican folk rhythms into its musical fabric and celebrating with joyful exuberance the love of the music itself, it’s the kind of song that puts Natalia Lafourcade in rarified company as an ambassador of Mexican song.
Un Canto por México, Vol. 1 won 2 other Grammys in 2020, including Album of the Year. It cemented her status as an artist devoted to Mexico’s musical tradition, her love of which is on display again in another Lafourcade original, “Mi Tierra Veracruzana”:
See you again
See you again
My Veracruz land, I want to see you
See you again
See you again
My Veracruz land, I want to love you
The below video of “Tú Sí Sabes Quererme” from Un Canto por México, Vol. 2 best conveys the spirit of the project:
Listen to: “Mi Religión”
Listen to: “Nunca Es Suficiente”
Listen to: “Ya No Vivo Por Vivir”
Listen to: “Lo Que Construimos”
Don’t miss: “Mi Tierra Veracruzana”
See also: https://edcyphers.com/2026/01/06/video-of-the-week-natalia-lafourcade-npr-music-tiny-desk-concert/
Every Moment Has A Song 