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Over 25 years, the Mexican singer-songwriter confesses she was unable to learn the art of expressing anger. “That cost me so much energy and dignity,” she states. Melancholy, on the other hand, was a familiar companion: “I live with her very close to me.” At 28 years old, the artist grew up outside Veracruz, a city on the Mexican Gulf, where she witnessed violence from so many angles: rampant femicide, narcoculture, and environmental attacks on local farms and rivers. As a lonely teenager, she discovered jazz legends like Billie Holiday. They helped guide the darkness she felt and sparked her interest in improvisational singing.

Born to a family of luthiers, she started making her own music, using a Venezuelan cuatro and drawing from Mexican folk traditions. Her 2022 debut, Marchita, meaning “withered,” presenting a minimalist, heartbreaking narrative of lost love.

“She stands among the most profound artists today,” says her peer and mentor, the Mexican songwriter Natalia Lafourcade. “Her voice embodies liberty, exotic beauty, and Latin American spirit. It reflects a deep connection to love, nature and human relationships.”

She remains fond of that record, she says today, sitting in a New York cafe. It won her a Latin Grammy and widespread acclaim. However, later, she says, “I aimed to incorporate more humor. After Marchita, I was a little bit trapped in this character that is sad and dark, very eloquent, very solemn. While that’s part of me, I sought to reveal my truer self.” Estrada talks with tender humour about that serious young girl so animatedly that her sparkly rose-shaped earrings swing. Tracks from Marchita originated in her teens, she notes: “I view that eloquence and darkness as naive, believing it was the sole way to express love and dreams.”

Shifting Sounds and Deeper Emotions

Her second album, she decided, would be poppier, lighter. Yet, personal losses unveiled a deeper, darker aspect. Her latest songs brim with accusation and despair: for ex-lovers who couldn’t reciprocate; for a friend who ditched her “because he couldn’t stand that my career was” – she shoots her hand upwards – “and his wasn’t. That betrayal led to deep depression. I thought, ‘I cannot believe that I’ve been loving you as my brother all these years and you don’t want to see me because you feel small?’ That shocked me so much.”

She channelled her indignation into Good Luck, Good Night, a fabulously melodramatic, comic kiss-off for something as pathetic as “el ghosting”. Each verse evokes the image of a tipped wineglass. “Sometimes our lives are like a telenovela – infinite drama and suffering,” she says, recalling the intense soaps from her childhood. “Which is true, to be alive is to suffer, but being ghosted, the fact that someone who is alive decides to be a ghost for you – it’s so miserable!” Her offense remains palpable. ‘It’s funny because I guess it shows how small we can be.”

Harnessing Anger’s Energy

During the process of writing, “I was like, wow, anger is really helpful,” she says. “Anger drives you to uphold your boundaries and desires. It’s beautiful, strange, uncomfortable, almost like a grandmother telling you: ‘What are you doing? You don’t want this.’ We need anger, actually, to fight for our lives and the lives of others.”

However, Vendrán Suaves Lluvias conveys serenity; it’s one of the year’s most unabashedly beautiful albums. After futile attempts to make the record with four other producers, Silvana decided to do it herself. She realised: “‘You’re the only one that knows what you want.’ It was so irresponsible to let in other people, to ignore my own desire.” She augments her cuatro with swooping flourishes of strings, piano and woodwind, her powerful voice overflowing with empathy. The bright, dewy Como un Pájaro (Like a Bird), nominated for best singer-songwriter song at next month’s Latin Grammys, is as fresh as a spring morning. She was surprised by the joyful melodies that came out of her. “Aging has taught me to cherish joy amid adversity. This record swings between beauty and fear.”

Loss and Homage

Ghosting’s sting faded compared to losing her friend Jorge, killed violently with his family in late 2022. “This is a little bit embarrassing, but I didn’t value friendship very much when I was growing up,” she confesses. “I was a little bit weird. I liked music that nobody was listening to. I was very isolated. Even the friends I had were super mean to me. I’ve always been highly sensitive.” Her first real friend, Jorge taught her what friendship was. “A person who loves, accepts, and honestly communicates with you. We were always together.”

When she planned to relocate to Mexico City, her parents consented only because Jorge joined. “They adored Jorge. He was like an older brother to me.” He accompanied her on tours. “I enjoyed so much feeling loved, not so like this super lonely child.”

With Jorge, says Estrada: “I rediscovered childhood joy. My heart felt weightless. Now it carries heaviness. I’m getting used to it.” Somber and intensified by strings, Un Rayo de Luz honors his memory. It was written during a residency at the house of the late singer Chavela Vargas, her idol, and interpolates her words: “¿Cómo será de hermosa la muerte que nadie ha vuelto de allá?” “I cling to that belief,” she states.

Advocacy and Empowerment

The killers were caught. “They’re gonna die in jail,” says Estrada, “but justice is the minimum. The state, everybody, failed us. I don’t fully trust incarceration. I advocate for rehabilitation.”

She has long championed justice: one of the earliest online hits for her is a 2018 video supporting Mexican abortion rights, predating legalization. In 2022, she released Si Me Matan following a student’s murder. “I try to use the voice I have and the space that has been given to me as an example of empowerment, especially for little girls,” she says.

Lafourcade was that example for Estrada. She returns the compliment. “She is undoubtedly the voice of young generations, with a soul and heart of great sensitivity,” says Lafourcade. “She possesses ancient wisdom in a vibrant, beautiful form.”

Art, Society, and Dialogue

In 2023, her music was used to counter corridos tumbados, the genre of regional Mexican trap popularised by Peso Pluma that has been accused of glorifying drug cartels and stoking violence. Estrada says she was “honoured”, but feels otherwise conflicted. Rather than banning such music, she suggests, “we should talk about why people are admiring people who are killing us, killing our freedom, killing all the things we love.” She adds: “In Mexico, there are so many things we need to start talking about, and we need to involve everybody. Conversation drives real change.”

Listening to herself helped Estrada become accountable to her own feelings. Writing the ultimatum Dime (Tell Me), she realised she didn’t want an ex to stay. She sought departure. “Discovering the power to walk away was liberating,” she says. “For me, it was hard to understand that I could just say no.”

She draws parallels to the Furies of Greek myth: goddesses of vengeance depicted with horrifying facial features. “My interpretation is that they were angry because of all the injustice on Olympus. Nobody wants to feel connected to the Furies because they’re ugly – it’s a really machista, misogynist conception of female fury. But I align with their spirit over other goddesses: OK, I’m gonna have snakes instead of hair and one eye in my frente – I don’t care: I just want to be whatever makes me happy, or more alive, or better.”