We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Santana Vigil. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Santana below.

Santana, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

Definitely the most meaningful and important project to me at the moment would definitely be my current band Virginia’s Basement. We are a BIPOC+ Emo band from Saint Paul and we make very pretty songs that get very tough with added gritty vocals yet screaming and singing about problems in our communities and in our lives. It is also named after my mother Virginia who has been a vital part to my whole world and how I navigate the scene.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Santana Vigil, everyone calls me Santi! I am a musician based out of the twin cities and have been around this scene for about a decade now, only recently getting my feet into the scene with a successful little band called Virginia’s Basement. I’ve also been a big part in organizing events and gigs and throwing some crazy shows in the past out of basements. I started my band less than 2 years ago with the help of my talented friends and we’ve been able to secure gigs with artist such as Crywank, Your Arms Are My Cooon, RXKnephew and locals bands like Heart to Gold, Gramma and Pierre!

I think I’m extremely proud of the fact that I was able to build a community and scene that would finally allow people who look like me a chance to experience the beauty that is the twin cities music scene. It’s kind of hard to navigate a scene especially as a POC, we aren’t the typical faces to be at a basement show in Minneapolis and it showed so bad we had to make a change.

Most of our fans are pretty young between the ages of 13- 25 but we’ve opened up the door to so many West Side kids from Saint Paul to finally get their hands into the scene and start making music of their own!

I just want to create a safe space for everyone who comes out to a show, make em feel that they have a friend and that they can do anything they can set their mind to.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I’m doing this for my Mother, Virginia Mendoza. She has been my rock and biggest influence of this whole project. I want to be able to help my mother retire one day and I truly believe the path I’ve taken will give my mother the break they deserve. I don’t mind standing on my feet all day but the idea of my mother doing that upsets me and makes me want to give her a better life, one that she deserves.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I was able to gain around 2k followers in less than 2 years by consistently posting and treating my online pages as a hub of content that people can return to daily. you need to stay in peoples faces and keep content rolling out so that way people are always looking and expecting something from you. Throwing your own gigs/events is also a great way to network, directly messaging people with personal and not copy/pasted messages will also build connections with people and make them more likely to support you and show up to your gigs!

Also talk about your social medias to everyone you see at a show, tell me to follow you, make them follow you. take out their phone and make them follow you haha

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/virginiasbasement/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VirginiasBasement
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@virginiasbasement
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3royizbBmcC4PRGDdl7mxV?si=NpaJmTIER5mqoZOBkPW1TQ https://virginiasbasement.bandcamp.com/

Image Credits
Teagan Greene Myles Ross