Chicago-based singer and songwriter Isabel Olive released her third album last Friday.
In “Cosmovisión,” the Venezuelan American singer known as Half Gringa deploys complex melodies and ruminative lyrics to explore themes like climate change and her dual heritage.
She spoke to WBEZ’s Mary Dixon before a recent performance. The following is an excerpt of that conversation, which has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
Q. You started writing the songs for “Cosmovisión” in 2020. When you look back now, how do these songs feel to you? Does it take you back to 2020 or have they moved forward to 2025?
A. In some ways, I am taken back to 2020. I think there are a couple references of me being inside writing stuff and not being able to leave. But I think what shocks me is how relevant the songs still are and the content still is at this point. Sometimes, I’ll write music and then not release it or perform it live until much later, and I’ll feel a little bit of a distance. And sometimes, the distance can be good, sometimes you need it. But for this record, it just feels so present to me and so relevant still.
Q. How does this set of songs feel different from your previous albums?
A. I think I had something really specific that I wanted to explore for this record. The first one was just sort of like, “These are all the songs I have so far,” and it felt like I was introducing my project to the world. And the second record, I wrote mostly as a reaction to a time where I was experiencing a lot of grief in various ways, and kind of sifting through these feelings that I had never felt before. And Cosmovisión is more like me trying to unpack a lot of the things that I’ve been trying to say about the world around me, about myself inside of me and how those two things kind of interplay.
Q. You were working on this album not only during the pandemic but also when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott was starting to send Venezuelan migrants to Chicago en masse. What was it like for you as a person of Venezuelan heritage, as an artist, to be creating in that atmosphere?
A. It felt like what I was doing was really urgent. I wanted to write something that would give them [Venezuelan migrants] hope and especially give their children hope. I think that it’s really hard to be a child, and to come to this country and have it be new and scary. I wanted to encapsulate what it’s felt like for me to grow up here biculturally, so that there’s something for them to hold onto and use as a North Star. And to know your experience growing up is going to be different than if you had stayed in Venezuela, and it’s going to be different than if you had been born in the United States. I wanted to see more art that shows this kind of gray area in which we’re living and showed that that’s okay.
Q. Many of your songs incorporate English and Spanish. “What’s the Word” really does it so beautifully on the new album. Can you talk a little bit about that song?
A. Yeah, it was really hard to write. I had the idea for the song when I accidentally got caught in the low rider lineup at the Puerto Rican Pride Festal. I was like, “Oops, that’s today.” And then, I was suddenly amidst a bunch of low riders that were immaculate; everyone was happy and smiling, and I loved it. And at the same time, I felt so sad, because I was thinking about how until recently, there hasn’t been a critical mass of Venezuelans in Chicago. And I want us to have a parade, you know?
Q. What do you want audiences to take away from “Cosmovisión?”
A. I think I just want people to be more open-minded about what the Latin American experience is and what the experience of growing up multiculturally is. I think that until recently, I’ve seen a lot of pigeonholing of different artists, whether it’s the genre that they’re supposed to be playing or what they’re supposed to be writing about. And I just want people to understand that it’s much more of a spectrum and that everybody’s story is different.