Brittany Kingery and her music have both found a home on the beach, and the tide is coming in to Olympia, just in time to kick off the Cinco de Mayo weekend.  

The Grays Harbor-born singer's concert in Olympia Friday, May 3 will be her first U.S. performance since the release of her beach-themed CD, Edge of the Ocean. And, with a move to Mexico in the works, it may be one of her last performances north of the Tropic of Cancer for quite a while. Meanwhile, she no longer hesitates when faced with the question, "What kind of music do you sing?" Gone are the long and complicated responses about a blending of country, rock, pop, reggae and Latin influences. Now her answer is down to two syllables: trop rock. 

"We've used that term in the past to describe it," says Kingery, who has recorded previously with Game Six, the trio she now fronts. "But we were doing other kinds of music, too. Now, with Edge of the Ocean, the musical migration is further along. We're playing trop rock." 

By Kingery's broad definition, the precise recipe for the mixing of musical genres that results in something called tropical rock is less important than the feel and the theme and the message of the song.

"If listening to the music takes you to your happy place or to a sunny beach or both," she says, "it's probably trop rock. I love the sun and the beach and the occasional margarita," she adds, "but for me personally, it's also about living and enjoying life in the moment." 

The genre is best personified by Jimmy Buffett, whose song "Margaritaville" has become an industry unto itself, and by Kenny Chesney and the Zac Brown Band, who have picked up the Buffett baton in recent years. But Kingery's brand of trop rock also draws on the influences old and new of some of her favorite artists - Led Zeppelin, Bob Marley, Colbie Caillat - whose songs she often covers in her live performances. 

Kingery says she's been surprised and delighted by the welcome that she has received in the world of trop rock, a genre mainly populated by male artists. Her music was quickly discovered by some of the leading trop rock radio stations in the world, Beachfront Radio, whose BeachBum Update calls her "an incredible fresh young voice", and The Shore Radio, which says she's a "rising star" and dubs Edge of the Ocean the best debut CD in the genre so far this year. She's also been impressed by a culture of generosity and service within the trop rock community, a culture into which she will fit right in. Most of the proceeds of sales and downloads of the CD are being donated by Kingery and Exit 104 Records to Mexico-based charities, including Corazón de Niña, a home for teenage girls removed from abusive homes in the Puerto Vallarta area, which will be the beneficiary of all sales through the Cinco de Mayo weekend. 

If Kingery manages to stand out in the genre, it might be because of the focus of her music on Mexico's Pacific Coast, where she first released the CD last month, performing in the Mexican states of Nayarit, where she plans to move later this year, and Jalisco. It might be because of her bilingual singing - although she doesn't speak much Spanish yet, she sings it fluently on some of the album's tracks, including a soulful lullaby-like interpretation of the classic Mexican song "Cielito Lindo." But in a genre built primarily on attitude and latitude, it is her stellar voice and vocal arrangements that will catch the ears of fans of trop rock music and rise above the sound of the crashing waves. 

THE ROYAL LOUNGE, BRITTANY KINGERY'S EDGE OF THE OCEAN CD RELEASE SHOW WITH THE BROWN EDITION, FRIDAY, MAY 3, 8 P.M., $10, 311 N. CAPITOL WAY, OLYMPIA, BRITTANYKINGERY.COM.