Meet VIBI, the 'Building the Band' Contestant Making Music on Her Own Terms

Netflix’s new show Building the Band is one part reality TV and one part musical performance.

Rising artist VIBI, a contestant on the show, describes it as Love Is Blind meets The Voice.

The purpose of the show is to form a band. But choosing your bandmates isn’t easy: “You’re in these little pods, isolated,” VIBI says. “You have to listen to everyone’s audition.”

From inside their pods, contestants press a button to signal their approval — and interest — in the artist who’s performing. The goal is to build a successful band from the people around you.

VIBI sang “Flowers” by Miley Cyrus for her audition and scored 18 likes, but it wasn’t enough to find her a home in a band.

“I was fighting for my position,” VIBI says. Her potential band chose another contestant, so VIBI had no face time with judges Nicole Scherzinger, Kelly Rowland and the late Liam Payne. Backstreet Boys’ AJ McLean hosts the show.

Still, the opportunity introduced VIBI to a community of artists. As she says: “Now I know them, and I can still sing with them whenever I want.” She also learned more about herself as an artist.

“You’re forced to see how you fit in a dynamic of other people and it forces you to look more at your individuality and how it plays alongside other people,” VIBI says.

She asked herself, Do I change myself to be a part of a group, or do I just be who I am?

VIBI chose the latter.

“I wanted to really be true to my artist project because I wanted people to see me on the show and want to know more,” VIBI says. “I thought it’d be kind of crazy if they saw me on the show and I was a totally different vibe in my artist project.”

In her music, VIBI values storytelling. “I always want [a song] to be just as thoughtful in lyrics as it is catchy,” she says.

Sonically, she prefers songs that translate well on stage. She only started songwriting so she could have songs to perform live, she says. “I'm a performer through and through.”

While her creative process changes from song to song, project to project, one thing always stays true: There has to be a catchy chord progression.

“If someone can put out a chord progression and I can sing a melody over it that I like within the first 30 seconds, then I know that we have a song,” VIBI says. “But if someone starts playing a chord progression, I try singing and I hate everything I just did, then it’s not a good song. Let’s do another chord progression.”

If you appreciate the melody, that’s enough for VIBI. But a deeper part of her is looking to connect with listeners who can hear part of their story in her words.

“My soul really wants people to connect in a way that makes them feel seen, or they’re like, ‘That happened to me!’” VIBI says.

As such, VIBI tries to respond to fan messages as often as possible. She’s a creator of music, yes, but she’s also a fan of it. She recognized the impact an artist can have on someone’s life.

And now, her music is taking on a life of its own through the careful world building that she’s creating alongside her songs. Think photo shoots, album covers, sets, props and other visual components of a song.

“World building is the thing that takes a songwriter to an artist, and it is just as equally as hard of a craft as creating the songs themselves,” VIBI says. “World building is challenging because you’re working with so many restraints. Songwriting is so freeing because there’s no restraints at all.”

No matter what the world looks like, it’s VIBI’s. Not an executive’s. Not the industry’s.

VIBI acknowledges conversations from people on the business side of music pushing to make an artist’s song “short form, content approved.” That interference, she adds, is “the opposite of art.”

VIBI talks about that relationship between artist and industry on her upcoming single, out this fall.

“The song feels like a cleanse,” she says.

In the meantime, VIBI will continue to write songs for anyone who appreciates a good melody — or anyone who can relate to the lyrics.

“I love being able to be someone’s emotional support system or their therapist, or the person that makes them laugh or gets them through it. I feel like music is my portal to be able to do that on a larger scale.”