Silvana Estrada

Silvana Estrada, a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist raised in Mexico, fuses North and Latin American styles with the African-rooted son jarocho traditions native to Veracruz. Her crystalline alto moves with a slippery, syncopated phrasing that defines her delivery. While pursuing jazz studies in 2016, she encountered guitarist Charlie Hunter during his teaching residency in Guadalajara; he went on to produce and perform on her self-recorded digital debut, the 2017 album Lo Sagrado, whose shifting textures weave contemporary jazz, indie pop, ranchera, cumbia, and bolero. Early solo uploads such as “Al Norte,” “Te Guardo,” and “Sabré Olvidar” accumulated millions of streams and opened touring routes. The 2018 EP Primeras Canciones earned widespread praise, and Estrada has shared stages or collaborated with Natalia Lafourcade, Mon Laferte, and Snarky Puppy. In 2020 she became the first Latin American artist signed to Glassnote Entertainment; her first release for the label, Marchita, arrived in January 2022.

Born in Veracruz in 1997 to luthier parents, Estrada absorbed traditional Mexican songs alongside Latin American popular and classical music broadcast on the radio. Instruments and melodies surrounded her from infancy, and she sang as soon as she could speak. Early influences included son jarocho pioneer Violeta Parra, ranchera composer Jose Alfredo Jimenez, and jazz vocalists Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan. She began exploring varied instruments in childhood; once she learned to read, poetry exerted an equally powerful pull. By age thirteen she was appearing in local bars under parental supervision. In high school she composed her first songs and mastered numerous instruments. At sixteen she entered the jazz-studies program at Universidad Veracruzana in Xalapa.

During a weekend at home she discovered the cuatro, the compact guitar with four or five single or paired strings common in Latin American and Caribbean folk traditions. Its luminous, enduring tone captivated her, and her father constructed the instrument she still uses in performance.

At a Guadalajara seminar for jazz students, she again met Charlie Hunter, whose solo work was unfamiliar to her but whose studio credits with D’Angelo, Norah Jones, Frank Ocean, and John Mayer she knew well. He encouraged students to play whatever music moved them, composed or otherwise. Struck by Estrada’s songs, he contacted her days later with the idea of recording together. They converted her parents’ guest house into an impromptu studio and captured Lo Sagrado, which contained her earliest documented compositions. A subsequent trip to New York immersed her in the city’s scene, where she performed with drummer Antonio Sánchez, Snarky Puppy’s Michael League, and other forward-thinking jazz musicians. She also began sharing original material online; the tracks eventually drew hundreds of millions of streams and the notice of peers including Natalia Lafourcade, Mon Laferte, and songwriter Jorge Drexler, though no contract materialized at the time.

Estrada returned to Mexico and settled in Mexico City, turning her focus toward deeper engagement with her cultural roots. Welcomed by the city’s independent-music community, she appeared alongside Julieta Venegas and David Aguilar. Strong audience response led to a sold-out national headline tour capped by a concert at Teatro de la Ciudad, followed by performances in Spain, Argentina, Colombia, and Uruguay and a return to New York to record her interpretation of Juan Gabriel’s “Amor Eterno.” Back in Mexico she recorded the four introspective songs that formed the 2018 Primeras Canciones EP—“Te Guardo,” “Al Norte,” “Saber Olvidar,” and “Tenais que Ser Tu,” the last a collaboration with Daniel, Me Estas Matando—while also joining Hunter and Carter McLean on a privately released project. Her solo lyric video for “Sabré Olvidar” later accumulated nine million views.

That summer Lafourcade invited her to join a performance of Andres Henestrosa’s “La Llorna” with Mon Laferte at Mexico City’s Teatro Metropolitan. In 2019 Estrada released the single and video “Carta,” contributed vocals to Fon Roman’s La Chispa, La Llama y El Humo, Alex Cuba’s “Sublime” and “Dividido,” and Daniel, Me Estas Matando’s Suspiros, and duetted with Playa Limbo on “Universo Amor.”

The next year she issued the hit single “Para Siempre” and joined keyboardist Roberto Verastegui’s electric jazz-inflected prog-rock ensemble Bahia de Ascenso, alongside reed and wind player Diego Franco, guitarist Aaron Flores, and drummer Andres Marquez; their self-titled debut appeared on Ropeadope in August. Shortly afterward she became the first Latin American artist to sign with Glassnote Entertainment Group.

In 2021 Estrada revisited “La Llorna” with Lafourcade and Ely Guerra for the album Un Canto por México, Vol. 2, recreating material from an earlier historic concert. She released the video single “Si Me Matan” in support of survivors of domestic violence, followed by “Marchita” and an NPR Tiny Desk Concert. Additional singles that year included “Trizteza” and a fresh version of “Te Guardo.” She closed the year opening her first U.S. tour for the guitar duo Rodrigo y Gabriela. Marchita, her second full-length album, reached listeners in both the United States and Mexico in January 2022.