Gina Chavez gives us a peek at her forthcoming album.

Gina Chavez is a bilingual Latin-folk singer/songwriter who blends the sounds of the Americas with tension and grace. Her music blends cumbia, bossa nova, vintage pop, reggaeton, and folk combined with dynamic vocals and sharp social commentary. She is the 2014 John Lennon Songwriting Contest Grand Prize Winner for her song “Siete-D,” a rock-cumbia-rap mix that explores the delights and dangers of El Salvador from a window on the 7-D, the bus route she rode as a volunteer there in 2010. An eight-time Austin Music Award winner, Chavez and her band swept the 2015 awards, winning Musician of the Year, Album of the Year(Up.Rooted), Song of the Year (“Siete-D”), Best Latin Band, and the Esme Barrera Award for Music Activism and Education, while placing in six other categories. A new Gina Chavez single from her upcoming intensely personal EP, Lightbeam. "Heaven Knows" is a love letter set to lyrics dedicated to her wife, Jodi Granado.

Chavez has received national recognition from NPR’s “All Songs Considered” and “Alt.Latino” for her debut SXSW performance (2012) as one of the new Latin artists to watch, and the Austin American-Statesman calls her “a true Austin music treasure — angelic vocals and a devilish treat on guitar.” Southern Living Magazine named her one of 11 “southern iconic women who have left a beautiful footprint across the South,” for her volunteer work in El Salvador. This will be her second appearance on Music Friday Live - her first interview was so much fun, we decided to ask her back.