Latest / The Scene Projects / Saskhia Menendez on Music, Podcasting, and Building Community

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Saskhia Menendez on Music, Podcasting, and Building Community · The Scene Projects

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  This program is part of the Scene Projects podcast network.
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  Scene Project features interviews with independent musicians, comedians, and artists
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  from across the Midwest.
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  Become part of our community and support local art wherever you are.
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  Welcome into a very exciting episode of the scene.
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  Today, we are joined by music industry innovator, artist, and podcast host, Saskia
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  Menendez.
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  Saskia, welcome to the show.
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  Oh, papa, thank you so much for having me.
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  It's a pleasure to be on your show today.
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  It's a pleasure for me to be able to return the favor.
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  I was blessed to be invited onto your program and had an absolutely lovely time chatting with
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  you then.
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  And so it's an honor for me to be able to return the favor now on the scene projects.
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  Before we get into everything that you're doing now, obviously, you're a you're a musician and
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  an artist.
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  You're also a podcast host, but there is a story before that as well.
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  So I'd like to give you a chance off the top here to kinda share a little bit of your
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  backstory, and we'll pick it up from there.
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  Alright then.
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  So I was born to two deaf parents.
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  My mom's African American and English.
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  My dad's Spanish and English.
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  So, basically, what it was for me was literally trying to find some communication skills, and I
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  found that quite difficult at home.
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  So I used to go to school, and they noticed I was really good at singing.
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  So my music teacher at school actually trained me.
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  She sent me for vocal lessons, and I happened to get a scholarship and a bursary to go to one
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  of the best schools.
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  And I'm from Oxford in England, so it's kind of like a university city.
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  We used go and sing for the cathedral.
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  So I had classical training from the age of eight years old up until 16, and that kind of
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  really solidified my love for music and kind of community and being part of something where I
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  felt I was, you know, welcome, but I could also communicate.
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  That has to be so tough, to grow up with not just one, you know, impaired parent, but but
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  both of them.
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  And and probably a little bit of their love story is probably something to do with both of
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  their impairments, I'm sure.
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  But, it's so hard because you are not.
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  And growing up and and kinda being their ears, essentially, I would guess, from a very early
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  age and having to communicate with them, obviously, I'm assuming you're fluent in sign
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  language and everything else.
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  And and as well.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  So just incredible.
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  What what an upbringing.
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  But then to on the other side of that, how how not I I don't I don't wanna say sad, but that
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  you're a beautiful singer, that you were gifted with this beautiful voice, and your parents
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  will never and I won't say never.
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  I think technology is coming along very much, but they haven't been able to enjoy this
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  beautiful gift that you've been given.
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  And I imagine as technology improves and if they ever get the chance That'd Yeah.
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  Well and I know that they've done it.
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  They have some of the things that can imprint, and I don't know if it works for every
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  impairment.
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  I don't know.
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  Yeah.
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  Not being around a lot of hearing impaired people, but the the tears that will flow when
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  they're able to hear your beautiful voice for the first time.
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  I just thinking of that future moment, and I know that we're going to get there.
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  I mean, technology is advancing so rapidly now.
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  And with AI helping some of these incredibly brilliant people to advance things faster and
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  faster, I really hope that they get the chance to do that, in their lifetimes.
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  And but, yeah, how challenging how challenging for a young child, to be kinda thrust into a
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  position that they're never prepared for.
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  Right?
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  You're never prepared to have to be the communicator for your for your parents.
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  So that's incredibly tough, and I'm sure that it, you know, in many ways shaped the human
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  being that sits in front of me today.
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  I think so.
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  I think it's been about compassion, understanding, and I'm the oldest out of three.
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  I've got three brothers and three sisters.
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  So I'm the oldest out of everyone, and we can all hear.
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  So I was kind of the oldest, and it was very difficult because we used to have flashing
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  lights.
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  So for example, if one of us would cry, the lights would flash to let my parents know that
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  we were crying.
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  So for us, it was a challenge, and I had to kind of be the voice for everybody, look after
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  everybody, but also communicate for my parents.
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  Yes.
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  It was a challenge.
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  Yeah.
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  Incredibly difficult to do that.
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  And, obviously, it would give you a very nurturing and, you know, a a compassionate
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  background.
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  Because if you didn't, you would just I mean, you would go crazy.
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  You would you would completely fall apart, and you weren't given that you weren't given that
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  option.
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  Right?
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  You were there and you had to be there for your entire family.
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  Yes.
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  But also when my when I was five years old, I came back from school one day and my mom had
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  just gone.
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  So I said to my dad, where's my where's my mom?
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  She She just ran away and she didn't come back.
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  So all of us were left with my with my dad on his own.
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  So it was a single dad.
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  He couldn't hear.
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  So, yeah, we had to stay with him for a little bit, he couldn't manage.
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  So we went into a children's home.
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  We went into foster care.
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  But luckily, my grandparents, my dad's mother and father were across the road, and they used
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  to look after us.
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  And after a while, I think I was about 12, that we went to move with them.
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  So, yeah, I've been through quite a lot of different challenges.
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  Yeah.
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  And just I my heart goes out to you.
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  That is such an incredibly difficult upbringing and and being born of, you know, it's not like
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  your parents were just English.
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  Right?
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  You Yes.
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  Are you different?
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  You you sounded different, I'm sure, when you talk than some of the other children.
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  So it's incredibly difficult, and it probably explains so much of why you are the
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  compassionate and real advocate that you are today for people who are different and as you
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  understand it better than I would say maybe one.
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  I do.
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  And I just wanna help others, and I've always wanted to make the world a better place.
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  And I've always been good at music, and I I just looked at the problems and how could I
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  make a solution for a problem that already exists.
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  And it wasn't about me.
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  It was about a wider community, like you said.
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  And and it was people that sometimes can't speak up or are scared to speak up or afraid to
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  speak up.
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  And I've got quite good skills.
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  So I just thought, why don't you use the skills you've been given and help others as well as
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  yourself to find a place in, you know, entertainment and music is extremely important.
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  So I you've been singing and performing, obviously, your your entire life.
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  You've been, you know, classically trained.
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  Did you really pursue a professional music career, you know, after, I guess it would be
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  secondary school there, like, high school and then into college?
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  Did you go to college for music as well?
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  Well, yeah, we start we've got GCSEs at my school.
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  So once you got to hit 16, you do your GCSEs.
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  So I did GCSE music.
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  I did a level music.
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  I also did a master's, and I did a BA.
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  So I've done the whole range apart from a PhD, which is a doctor.
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  So all of my stuff's actually been in music, for sure.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  Incredible.
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  Just not only classically trained, but very well educated in all of them as well.
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  Yeah.
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  Passionate about music.
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  There's very few people.
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  As someone who didn't like, I I I stopped taking choir lessons in in high school.
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  You know?
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  And I was always, but I've played guitar, and I've always just been on my own.
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  So I've never had that, the academic side of music.
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  It's probably, I don't wanna say that it's, like, hindered my career, but I could have been
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  further along.
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  Right?
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  I could have been further along because with that comes connections with people and
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  opportunities that I I kind of just closed the door on because I chose a different path.
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  Yeah.
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  Absolutely.
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  And I think it's given me a lot of good skills, you know, understanding the business, how it
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  operates, who do I need to contact, building those meaningful relationships, you know, but
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  also offering representation, visibility, and education to people that, you know, don't
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  always see that.
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  So you have your artist career.
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  Now when did you start the podcast?
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  When did you get into well, I know not only want to, you know, we know how it can be as
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  artists where you're constantly kind of talking about yourself.
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  And even though you're advocating for other people sometimes, that that's necessarily, not
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  necessarily what a platform is built on, especially in the music artist career.
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  So when did you start the podcast to really utilize all the skills that you have and this
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  passion for helping others?
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  I'll be honest with you.
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  About three years ago, I thought, right.
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  There's an opportunity here.
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  Podcast are just, like, becoming quite, you know, well known.
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  And I thought there's a gap here that I could use as a platform to give other people a voice,
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  but to also educate and to inspire and to also for me to learn how to support these people
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  better rather than just, talking about my community, building bridges across multiple
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  different underrepresented communities because I think it has to be that way.
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  We can't just work for ourselves and expect everyone else to help us.
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  We don't want special treatment.
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  We just want to be treated equally and fairly like everybody else.
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  But that also takes time.
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  That also takes relationships, and you've got to build those bridges.
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  Right?
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  So that's what I've been doing.
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  Heard and seen.
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  Yeah.
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  That's all people really want to be.
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  And it's something that I discovered early on with my own podcast that I started just a few
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  short years ago.
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  We're about to approach our second anniversary in March, which is kinda weird because I never
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  it started it with the intention of, like, I was gonna do a podcast forever.
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  It just kinda happened.
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  Right?
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  Yeah.
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  But it was great.
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  Yo.
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  Well Great.
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  And and my story was so so different just but I I exactly like you.
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  I saw an underserved community of of artists of all kinds out here in the Upper Midwest in The
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  United States.
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  We're in a very small rural area.
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  There's not a lot of media in the first place, whether it's TV or radio.
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  And I was very blessed to have gotten myself onto the TV news stations and onto the radio
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  stations and had been on a couple of podcasts myself, but it it didn't really move the needle
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  either.
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  And I had realized that while these were platforms that I was going on, they weren't
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  necessarily built to elevate just musicians.
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  They weren't in a niche of just elevating these musicians, or they lacked the dedication to be
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  putting out consistent content and really, doing what I thought needed to be done.
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  As a podcast fan myself, I saw the consistency that was needed from it to build a fan base
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  around the content and around the artist.
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  So I really just dove in.
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  Right?
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  100 episodes in less than nine months.
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  Now we have over 400 episodes that are out there, and, you know, 1,500 uploads we had last
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  year on YouTube alone between the short form and the long form content.
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  So really pushing this out there and being a beacon for artist discovery and artists of all
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  kinds and reaching like you to build bridges into all the different communities, not just
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  across societal bridges, but physical.
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  Right?
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  Reaching out into Yeah.
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  Different communities.
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  I know it's a little bit harder for our international audiences to maybe get out.
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  And with Europe, you have language barriers that you start to bump into.
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  We're very blessed to be here in The States where pretty much everybody speaks English.
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  Right?
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  Most of the performers.
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  Yeah.
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  And we're able to reach out now in geographically.
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  Right?
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  So Mhmm.
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  I'm about to embark on a 12 city tour throughout The US and leaving my small hometown
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  and visiting the big cities around.
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  Some of these hubs are obviously very well known for their music, Detroit and Austin and
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  New Orleans and Atlanta and Nashville Yeah.
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  And reaching into those communities.
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  Because while they may be where the industry is and some of the biggest artists are, where
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  there are those big artists, there are tens of thousands of artists that you would never hear
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  of that nobody's really giving a platform to Right.
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  In their own geography because there's so many.
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  And and we're just trying to be that beacon inside of those places as well.
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  It's lovely.
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  And I think, you know, music's always been a way of escape.
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  It's been a therapy for me.
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  It's also been a way of, you know, finding myself and healing and letting you know,
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  sometimes when you write a song, you're actually releasing some of the baggage that you
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  carry or communicating in a way you couldn't say.
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  You know?
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  This is why I love music, and I think it's so powerful because, again, it is universal.
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  Everybody loves music.
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  Right?
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  Everyone can connect with it regardless of even if you speak the language.
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  So this is a really massive skill music has that not nothing else can do.
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  Right?
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  Oh, great point, Saskia.
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  And I don't know if I shared it on your program or not, but I spent a year in Mexico, and I saw
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  that in full bore.
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  I mean, we were in a very rural place, in Mexico.
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  We lived there for a year, and I was surviving for myself and my family by playing American
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  music Nice.
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  In the square.
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  And most of these people there spoke very little English if they spoke it at all.
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  Right?
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  But they were still enthralled that someone who looks like me was in the heart of their town.
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  I mean, some of them have probably never even seen a Caucasian male, but, like, they've never
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  seen one in real life before.
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  So to kinda come down there and to be that and to see what a a little bit of a spectacle that
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  I was, but to see the connection that we made through music.
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  And and it would really open my eyes to exactly what you said.
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  The universal language of music, also sports, I think, are are another universal language of
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  what I saw firsthand, which gives me a a much different perspective, I think, than a lot of
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  American artists.
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  To understand that you can reach across borders and reach across the world with your music
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  regardless of whether they speak English or not.
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  Absolutely.
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  And I think, you know, sports and music are very well connected because most people that
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  are good at sports are very good at music.
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  I've noticed that.
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  But I can't do sports.
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  So I'm stick sticking to the music.
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  That's fair.
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  You know what I But you have an opportunity, you know, if if you watch the Super Bowl here
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  in The United States, and and I'm sure it's the same.
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  I mean, with with football in The UK, you you can't hone in on a stadium where it's different
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  there where, yes, they're piping in some music, but the crowd is engaging in songs.
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  My god.
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  I went once with my ex partner, and we went to Arsenal Stadium, which is literally five
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  minutes up the road from me.
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  And I literally went in and the atmosphere was so vibrant.
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  It just made you feel cool without the music.
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  And I'd only been once, and I was like, this is awesome.
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  You know what I mean?
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  What a nice atmosphere.
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  I could really feel the vibes.
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  It was great.
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  I'm not a football fan.
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  Yeah.
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  Absolutely incredible.
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  And I'm definitely putting it on, on my bucket list to get over and and to take in some
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  premier league, football action and really to be a a part of that scene.
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  And now with American football traveling over there, we run a Minnesota Viking show.
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  The Vikings played over, in Ireland and in The UK last year.
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  So, you know, the NFL is trying to bridge that gap.
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  And then look what they did with the, you know, the Latin community this year by featuring Bad
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  Bunny on the halftime show who sang all in Spanish.
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  And I I know it was a very polarizing event for some, but for myself having, you know, one foot
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  in there and realizing that as a global brand, the NFL is trying to reach out across borders
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  itself.
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  Pits as well.
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  Oh, that was
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  a such a powerful moment, right, to bring in new fans of the sport and all the politics
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  aside.
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  I thought it was a really beautiful moment.
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  And it it's actually inspired me because we did a Super Bowl watch along show on our YouTube
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  channel, the scene project sports network that I'm gonna run my own halftime Super Bowl show
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  next year.
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  And and
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  and when we have people engaging with us, granted it won't be, you know, a 130,000,000 or
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  whatever they said, watch.
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  We'll have our people that are engaging, and then we're able to introduce them to new
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  artists in that moment as well.
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  So it was an eye opening experience, for all of us.
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  And, yes, sports and music are are are very intricately linked, I I think, for millennia.
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  Right?
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  And also using sports as mental health release and trying to use it as a a tool, you know,
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  alongside what I'm doing because it's very competitive, very fast paced.
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  Sports always helps me to feel better.
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  It's like a medicine.
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  A bit like music.
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  It's a medicine for my soul.
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  When I'm doing it, I feel so much better afterwards.
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  Do you know what I mean?
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  So think all these things and incorporating them into my routine does really help for sure.
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  Yeah.
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  A 100%.
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  I I think you're touching on something there.
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  And because I have a foot in music and a foot in sports, I think that there's a way to bring
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  it all together, that everything that we're doing and the reasons that I enjoy doing them
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  is because they are a form of therapy.
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  Right?
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  I have my own past and my own troubles that that I have dealt with, and music or sport have
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  been the only two things that have really enabled me to connect with other people and to
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  express myself.
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  Right.
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  And not everyone's academic.
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  Some people are creatives.
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  And this is what I'm trying to explain to people as well.
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  Like, not everyone's into books.
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  Not everyone's into reading.
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  Not everyone's good at English.
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  But those kind of people, they have got skills.
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  We need to make sure that we support those people in the creative industries, which is
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  what I look at as a whole rather than just music.
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  It's music and entertainment because they're all connected.
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  We all work so closely together.
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  You know?
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  I'd love for you to talk about some of the things you're doing in the community.
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  I I know that you're, you know, not just performing and you're not just podcast hosting.
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  Tell us about some of the other things that you're doing in the community.
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  Okay.
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  So I'm just traveling.
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  I'm off Canada at the end of this week.
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  So I'm presenting the global trans charter in Toronto, then I'm coming back, and then I'm
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  doing another one in Long Island in March.
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  And then I've got another one in Oxford Brookes at the university.
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  So I'm presenting the global trans charter to people, getting people to sign up to that,
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  getting awareness, education, empowerment, and just educating people and helping people come
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  on board and raising awareness because I think that's really important.
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  It absolutely is.
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  And I couldn't be more proud of you.
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  I have some you have some traveling of your own.
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  We'll both be in the air and on the ground a whole lot in the next several weeks and Yes.
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  Traveling around, connecting with people, building bridges.
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  And I I think that's why I was instantly, you know, attracted to your show and everything
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  that you're doing and very happy to, extend an arm and a and a hand across the pond.
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  And, hopefully, we we get a chance to connect, when you're in The States in the future.
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  I won't be making it up to Long Island in March on our tour, unfortunately, at the not getting
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  back that far north.
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  But who knows?
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  I mean, I'm traveling, in my own vehicle, so I'll just stay out.
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  As long as my my wife will let me, I would be merry.
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  You know, I would love to get out and and continue to connect with people and, just to be
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  a a beacon, a a beacon for change, a beacon for causes that matter, Operation Combating
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  Veterans Suicide, a foundation that we work very closely with and raising awareness in the
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  same way for communities that are underserved, that necessarily don't, you know, for other
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  reasons, don't speak up for themselves.
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  Right?
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  And, it's it's absolutely incredible what you're doing.
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  Go ahead and plug everything that you need to, before I let you go here, and, I'll let you get
• 19:03
  to, I'm sure, what is a very busy afternoon.
• 19:06
  It is a very busy one.
• 19:07
  And just to touch on the veteran stuff as well.
• 19:09
  Like, both my grandparents were World War two veterans, so I really respect the work you do
• 19:14
  for veterans.
• 19:14
  And please do keep up the amazing work because it means a lot to me personally too.
• 19:19
  So, yeah, thank you.
• 19:20
  Thank you for that, and I thank them for their service to their own country.
• 19:24
  Yes.
• 19:25
  Absolutely.
• 19:26
  Thank you.
• 19:28
  An honor.
• 19:29
  Anything to plug website for the podcast, for your artistry?
• 19:35
  Where can people, find you?
• 19:36
  Yeah.
• 19:37
  Cool.
• 19:37
  Go on Spotify.
• 19:38
  It's called music industry insights worldwide.
• 19:40
  You can find me on LinkedIn, Saskia Menendez, or you can connect with me on Instagram.
• 19:45
  That's m I zed s a s k I a.
• 19:48
  That's it.
• 19:49
  Fantastic.
• 19:50
  Well, Saskia, thank you so much for taking some time for me today.
• 19:53
  I can't wait to connect with you again, in the future and to finally meet in person one day.
• 19:59
  And thank you for being part of the scene.
• 20:01
  It's an honor.
• 20:02
  Thank you so much too.
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