Everywhere Eva Ayllon goes in Peru, people recognize her.

For most of her 48 years, the Afro-Peruvian singer has been a star of gargantuan proportions: She has more than 20 hit albums to her name.

To celebrate her 30 years in the profession, she recently performed in front of 20,000 fans in Lima, Peru, and it's not uncommon for her to fill stadiums with 30,000 people.

So when Ayllon travels to cities like Bloomington — where she performs Saturday at the Lotus World Music and Arts Festival — things are a little different.

For one thing, she often is asked why she doesn't perform Andean music, so she educates people about Afro-Peruvian history.

"I expect that one day nobody will be surprised that slaves were also forced into the coasts that gave birth to the Andes," she said, in a translated e-mail interview.

Ayllon's music focuses mostly on genres found in the coastal plains of Lima. The singer has been busy learning English so she can communicate that kind of information more directly with her audiences here and in Canada.

Although Ayllon is no stranger to touring foreign countries — even selling out recent gigs in Austria — conquering the U.S. market is a new challenge.

Although she was first introduced to American audiences through David Byrne's The Soul of Black Peru in 2000, and she has done some touring here, Ayllon's newest CD, Eva! Leyenda Peruana, is her "letter of introduction to North America," she said.

Released by Times Square Records earlier this month, it's Ayllon's first USA-produced album. It includes songs she has performed regularly over the years, but they're updated versions she calls more "free."

Touring in the United States gives Ayllon another kind of freedom.

While she is grateful to be so respected and recognized in Peru, an upside of traveling is "the freedom of walking around, going shopping, going to a restaurant in peace," she said.

Embarking on an extensive tour — her Lotus stop is the second on a 17-city list — requires Ayllon to rest her voice for a week or two.

"I want to be able to give more than 100 percent to audiences abroad," she said.

She also makes sure her two teenagers have tutors so they don't fall behind in school.

Ayllon's presence in the United States is not going unnoticed.

"Originally, my audiences in the U.S. were only exiled Peruvians, then slowly other Latinos came … In the last two years, I have seen white Americans and African-Americans," she said.

She said people are reacting to the music with "amazing intensity," even if they don't understand the lyrics.

She also recently represented her country in a concert at a festival in Washington, D.C., Celebrating the Arts of Latin America at the Kennedy Center.

Ayllón said her longtime relationship with a man who lives in the New York area was the motivating factor to promote her music now in this part of the world.

"The defining event was love," she said.

And Ayllón plans to stay on the road as long as it takes to make her name known throughout North America.

"I'm not going to stop doing what I'm doing until every American has heard these songs," she is quoted in a press release.