La Cumbia Del Mole Lyrics in English Lila Downs , Flaco Jimenez, Max Baca

From the very first accordion riff, La Cumbia del Mole whisks us into a bustling Oaxacan kitchen where music, food and folklore simmer together. Lila Downs and her Tejano guests invite us to sip mezcal with coffee, sway to the cumbia rhythm and watch the molendera grind an aromatic parade of ingredients: peanuts, dry bread, almonds, chile, salt, chocolate, cinnamon, pepper and cloves. Each repeated ¡Se muele! turns the kitchen’s mortar into a percussion instrument, blending sound with the scents of the region.

At the heart of the song is the figure of Soledad. She is part beloved cook, part spiritual muse, promised to prepare the singer a little pot of mole beneath the starlit ruins of Monte Albán. Her name also echoes the Virgin of Solitude, Oaxaca’s patron saint, linking the sensual pleasure of food to devotion, fiestas and fireworks where a torito (bull-shaped pyrotechnic) is burned for good luck. In short, this joyful anthem celebrates Oaxaca’s ability to heal bad moods with herbs, unite people through shared plates and turn every grind of the metate into a reason to dance.