In a biweekly series of features, we’re inviting Minnesota artists to introduce themselves to our audience. Today: Xina, a singer and dancer with a spiritual approach to making music.

My name is Xina. I've been writing songs for as long as I can remember. I never used to show anybody. It was always like a dream, something I never considered pursuing seriously. In high school, I started to explore it on a deeper level. A friend of mine started producing some songs for me. From there, I realized that it was something I wanted to pursue. It always felt very spiritual for me, and it still is.  

I'm a very spiritual person. There was one time I wrote a song in early high school that was basically Christian pop music and feeling like God had written it through me. Now I understand that experience to be a stream of consciousness experience. That's how I connect to my spirit. It's how I connect to the source. So, it's always spiritual. 

Musical style, influences, and dancing 

I like the term “art-pop” to describe my music. My vocals and my songwriting style have a lot of pop and R&B influence, but I like to get experimental with the production. To me, art-pop means not subscribing to any type of formula when it comes to structuring and producing songs, just boundless creativity. I stopped listening to music for the last few years almost completely so that I can shut out influence and just let it get weird. I do have a lot of influences, though: Frank Ocean, FKA Twigs, Solange, James Blake, and Moses Sumney. Those are the artists that I grew with as I was initially pursuing this, and they resonated with my spirit.  I feel like they're all very similar in ways to who I've become. 

I’ve been a dancer longer than I've been a musician. That was my first creative outlet. So, working on these big projects with lots of dancers, doing pieces for stage and theatre all translates into this big picture, multi-disciplinary, multimedia experience that I'm trying to create. Recently, I've been pole dancing mainly and it's been awesome. It was always something I secretly wanted to pursue. I'm so fascinated by the art form and the beauty of it, how it's so effortless looking when it's done well, but it's very difficult. As I started to learn, I was immediately hooked because it's such an incredible tool for growing confidence and strength. Pole dancing is having time with yourself, understanding your body, and pushing your limits.  

The real meaning of Pull/Push 

I’m in the middle of putting out this two-part project called Pull/Push, which was inspired by the physics of pole dance and the give and take of human relationships. I think “Lullaby by White Noise” is a good example of the overall theme of Pull/Push. There's a post that I keep seeing on social media, something along the lines of forgiving yourself for viewing somebody else's lack of reciprocation as a challenge to convince them of your worth. I feel like that’s the essence of Push. I find it hard to back down from a challenge, and it's gotten me hurt several times. So, putting that in the music has been an incredible catalyst for healing, growth, and learning about myself. I don't even think about the fact that people are going to perceive my art when I'm making my art. 

Discovering how to be authentic, vulnerable and how to stay true to myself has been a challenge. It's not always easy to put your heart out there... My art is the place where I can be vulnerable. It's teaching me how to integrate that into my daily life.  A lot of the time, it feels like when I put the music out it’s the last step in the healing process for whatever the art was inspired by. It’s cathartic, but it can be challenging at the same time. 

I don't have much outside of music. My art is important to me beyond anything. It's my whole life. There are so many things I'm doing between singing, producing, learning instruments, and dancing. It's all-encompassing. It's what I wake up in the morning thinking about, what I'm doing all day, I go to bed dreaming about all these ideas. It's important to me to be able to keep doing what I'm doing and express myself in the ways I know how to inspire other people to do the same. It's incredible when people tell me I've inspired them. I think that's what reinforces my purpose, hearing that I've inspired anybody else makes it 100% worth it for me.  

Check out Xina’s latest self-directed music video, “Runnin” and listen to Push on October 28th.