Luz Elena Mendoza Ramos of Y La Bamba is Reborn in Music

Luz Elena Mendoza Ramos is the embodiment of the phrase the one who is “not busy being born is busy dying.” Seemingly every second of the day, compounded weekly, monthly, yearly, Mendoza Ramos is learning, growing, changing. It’s an organic process that mirrors their very entry into songwriting.

When they were 18 years old, Mendoza Ramos would play a friend’s guitar at their house. There, Mendoza Ramos learned a few chords and a few strumming patterns. Suddenly a life that included music as much as air or water now had a fresh avenue to travel toward expression. For Mendoza Ramos, who was born to Mexican parents who played music in the house endlessly, music is as much an extension of time and space as it is a product of work. And it’s with this backdrop that their new album, Lucha, with their band, Y La Bamba, finds listeners on Friday (April 28). The record is as lush and complex as its creator. A prism of seemingly disparate sound beams that coalesce into a churning galaxy.