Half Gringa
Half Gringa
Image courtesy of the artist
Emerging from Chicago’s flourishing indie music scene, Half Gringa creates music informed by contemporary indie rock and Latin American and midwestern folk. Isabel Olive, the songwriter and multi-instrumentalist at the core of Half Gringa, says her genre is similar to “When you grew up in the Midwest really into alternative rock, but heard a lot of country music in the supermarket. Or when your mom loved Bruce Springsteen and Maná, and sometimes your brain starts playing them at the same time.”
The name Half Gringa is both a tribute to and study of her legacy, stemming from a childhood term of endearment as “la Gringa” in her Venezuelan family, and her bicultural experience growing up in the United States. Olive's work seeks to narrate her tireless pursuit as a pupil of both her origins and her experiences.