Virginia to Vegas

Born on 31 January 1990 in Richmond, Virginia, Derik Baker is better known by his stage name Virginia to Vegas; a Juno-nominated indie-pop artist with his head in the electronic music clouds. He moved to Guelph in Canada at an early age and spent the rest of his childhood there, developing an interest in writing and performing music in the form of melodic pop records with some electronic sounds whilst at high school. He started publishing his songs via videos online and was discovered by Wax Records who signed him in 2013. His first single, "We Are Stars," featuring Alyssa Reid was released in 2014 and was an immediate hit, reaching number 14 on the Canadian Hot 100 Chart. It also achieved platinum sales. He took part in a short tour of Canada with Alyssa Reid in 2014. He also toured supporting Maroon 5 in 2014 and later in the same year released an EP called Vol.1, which included "We Are Stars." His second single "Our Story" was released in 2015, followed by "Lights Out" in 2016. The latter track includes a sample of "Somebody's Watching Me," the 1984 hit by Rockwell, and was certified platinum for sales. He was nominated for Pop Artist or Group of the Year at the 2015 Sirius XM Indie Awards and won the Factor Breakthrough Artist of the Year gong at the Canadian Radio Music Awards that year. His debut album Utopia was released in 2016, and included all four of his singles to date. In 2017, he released the singles "Selfish" and "Emotions," with "Yesterday" following in 2018. That same year, he received a Juno Award nomination for Breakthrough Artist of the Year. The aforementioned three songs of 2018 were all included on his 2019 EP Hartland Street, as was the single "Just Friends." He dropped a pair of EPs in 2020—A Constant State of Improvement and Don't Wake Me, I'm Dreaming—while teaming up with MacKenzie Porter for the 2021 collaborative single "This Sucks" and crashing into the charts in 2022 with Noelle and their "Daydreaming" single. 2022 also saw the release of the It's a Little Complicated, But I'm Okay EP while his second full-length, Life Gets Interesting..., followed in 2023. In 2023, he also released the festive team single and Wham! cover, "Last Christmas," with Tyler Shaw, Lolo, New Friends, Noelle, and Shawn Hook in tow.

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