Gina Chavez is a Latin folk musician known for social activism and unique blend of different genres of music, ranging from reggaeton to cumbia.

HV: You do a mix of so many different types of music. Can you tell me more about that?

CHAVEZ: I usually describe my style as Latin soul pop or Latin folk pop. We do everything from an introspective thoughtful songwriter to indie band to Latin dance band and everything in between. There’s a large piece of it that people connect to that is the Latin rhythm. [Whether] I’m singing in English or Spanish… that’s kind of a big piece in what we’ve really made a name for ourselves with.

HV: You’ve been described as a music activist because many of your songs have strong social justice themes. Was there a point when you realized you wanted to do this?

CHAVEZ: I think that just came naturally. I think the first things that prompted me to start singing were those kinds of moments. I actually did a beat as a journalism student. I was doing a beat on the homeless and that’s what prompted probably what you’d call hits, I mean in my tiny community when I was first starting out as a songwriter.

But I wrote a song called “St. Anthony” and that was one of the cornerstone pieces of my work at the time. People really loved that song, and they connected to it and it was basically from the point of view from different homeless people on the street, kind of like “hey do you see me? I’m on the street, I might be asking for buck, but can you at least just shake my hand, can you look me in the eye, give me some dignity for a second?”