Lhasa de Sela was born on September 27, 1972, in Big Indian, New York, to a Mexican father and an American mother, growing up in an unconventional, nomadic environment that would deeply impact her artistic sensibilities.

Her early years were spent traveling with her family in a converted school bus between the United States and Mexico, where she and her siblings were homeschooled and immersed in a rich world of languages, music, and stories.

Named after the city of Lhasa in Tibet, her childhood was marked by the influence of artistic and multicultural backgrounds, including a Panamanian pianist grandmother and a Lebanese great-grandfather who sang in multiple languages.

After her parents separated when she was thirteen, she moved with her mother and sisters to San Francisco, where she began singing in local cafés and was inspired by artists like Billie Holiday to pursue music as a career.

In her early twenties, she moved to Montreal, Quebec, joining her sisters who were studying circus arts and quickly making the creative Canadian city her home. There, she began performing in bars, collaborating with guitarist Yves Desrosiers, and developing the unique style that would define her music.

Her debut album, "La Llorona," released in 1997, blended Latin American traditions with influences from klezmer, gypsy jazz, and torch songs, earning her both a Félix Award and a Juno Award and achieving platinum sales in Canada.

Her haunting vocals and multicultural repertoire—a mixture of Spanish, French, and English—gained her international acclaim and fans around the world. She later lived in France, worked with her circus-performing sisters, and produced her second album, "The Living Road," in 2003, followed by extensive touring and collaborations with other musicians. In 2005, she was recognized by BBC Radio 3 as the best world music artist of the Americas.

Her third album, simply titled "Lhasa," was released in 2009 and showcased a more introspective and stripped-down sound. Around the time of the album’s completion, She was diagnosed with breast cancer, which would ultimately cut her life and career short.

She died at her home in Montreal on January 1, 2010, at the age of thirty-seven, leaving behind a celebrated but brief legacy as one of the most original and passionately expressive voices in world music.