Cy White on Life, Lessons & Legacy

Cy White shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.

Hi Cy, thank you for taking the time to reflect back on your journey with us. I think our readers are in for a real treat. There is so much we can all learn from each other and so thank you again for opening up with us. Let’s get into it: What is something outside of work that is bringing you joy lately?
Right now it’s Clipse’s latest album, Let God Sort Em Out. Coincidentally, this relates to another potential ice-breaker question: Who am I learning from right now? I’m learning from the Thornton Brothers the power of self-actualization. The power of standing ten toes in your identity. Authenticity at all costs. I’ve never cleaved to trends or been interested in following a wave. However, I’ve struggled with being able to really live within my truth, mainly because it wasn’t exactly encouraged around me. I believe art doesn’t force you to do anything you weren’t already thinking about doing. It does provide the push, the energy to turn potential to kinetic. Let God Sort Em Out didn’t start me on this path of being myself at all costs, but the duo certainly pushed me the extra inch to claim all of myself completely. Damn what anyone else thinks about it.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
Madasa Media is a full-functional media company designed to ensure Black, Brown, Indigenous folx of all identities get the best chance possible to get their work not only recognized, but fairly compensated. “Know Your Worth” is one of the company’s most important tenants. If you know your worth, own your worth, you can tell people, to their faces, that you know what you deserve for the work you produce.

This all stemmed from me always being overlooked, ignored, or straight-up rejected. Certainly grossly underpaid. Being told my work is “too”: too cerebral, too complicated, too simple, too this, too that. I don’t only want to provide people a proper lens into the power of their work. Madasa Media’s entire point is to ensure that artists who are often silenced, and certainly not compensated properly, are able to truly make their art their living. Cut through the BS, get real support for the work. That means, yes, workshopping, personal training, media and financial literacy. Full-functional.

Thanks for sharing that. Would love to go back in time and hear about how your past might have impacted who you are today. What part of you has served its purpose and must now be released?
People pleasing. I understood my role was to make sure everyone felt comfortable with my presence. But more than that, really, I was given the impression that I was only as good as I was useful. I have a very exacting concept of loyalty, something that many people around me just never had. Mix that with a desire to ensure that everyone has what they need (and that I don’t lose my usefulness), you have the perfect recipe for a people pleaser who is lost when people no longer need her. Putting myself in limbo because while I was never directly told that I had to work to earn people’s loyalty and genuine friendship, I was also never discouraged from doing it. Never directly told that my worth lay in my existence and my presence.

Yeah, that’s dead. It’s an ongoing process for me, but I’ve genuinely just come to the conclusion that God can sort that thang out. I’m no longer interested in other people’s comfort. (And honestly, the times we’re in now, people need to start getting uncomfortable. And some of us have to get comfortable making people uncomfortable.)

Was there ever a time you almost gave up?
I’m an artist, hon. If I’m not on the brink of giving up every other week, am I really doing it right? (Joking, of course.)

The most useful part isn’t the fact that I had to be talked down from the ledge. The most useful part is that I got down from the damn ledge. Sometimes that was easy work. Many times, it was a weeklong, monthlong battle to really bring myself back to center.

But that’s the thing. Remembering my core. Remembering my center. Honestly reflecting on those who I know would be shattered. Knowing that those I love, who genuinely love me, their world would be dark… The ledge doesn’t hold the same power as the power of guilt and heartache, at the thought.

The most vivid time of giving up on what actually feeds me: I decided to stop creating after getting none of the results I wanted, seeing others succeed, being passed over on things I knew I would be perfect for. I audibly made the declaration, put down my pen, and was determined to let mediocrity and unfulfillment move me. I was sick for two months. Physically ill. I could barely get out of bed to eat, go to my 9-to-5, come home, distract myself with TV, music, YouTube, until it was time to crawl back into bed. Rinse. Repeat. At some point, I got bored of it and really just incensed that people didn’t see my worth. At that point, I didn’t either, to be honest. But I also hate people telling me I can’t do something. So, pure spite got me off that ledge! (Hahaha.)

I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. What are the biggest lies your industry tells itself?
Its delusion of importance. This industry, as all industries with large reach, really banks on its self-importance. These industries forget that the only, ONLY, reason they have any of the influence they do is because the people said they do. Now, numb people enough, they’ll forget their own power within these systems. But just look at the power of the people when Target and Disney decided to play their version of chicken. They blinked first.

The problem is really in a corporatocracy, it’s not hard to numb the masses. Capitalism depends WHOLEHEARTEDLY on the mindset of the majority of the people under its shadow. We went from the barter system (physical goods for services and vice versa, substantive measures of “wealth”) to a purely imaginary, insubstantive system that really can’t sustain itself when new digital forms of this so-called currency can pop up at any time. We’ve all just bought into the illusion, and will cleave so desperately to our conveniences and our system-sanctioned flashes of “wealth” that corporations across these industries can oftentimes unsubtly enact their own best interests.

And just with any drug, it’s hard to go cold turkey, particularly if everyone’s under the same euphoric illusion. A mass folie à deux that’s so addictive people will steal, betray, kill, cheat to keep themselves under. These industry capitalists, too, are addicted to the illusion. They’ve just hoarded the resources to enact their designs, still numbing their gums with their imaginary power. While the corporate cocaine is pure, the masses keep chipping their teeth on the same crack rock. Slowly but surely, though, the people are realizing the emperor was naked all along.

Okay, so before we go, let’s tackle one more area. If you knew you had 10 years left, what would you stop doing immediately?
(Okay, so now this feels like therapy. Hahaha.)

Hiding. Being polite. Worrying about “success.”

So what you’re saying is it’s time to stop those things now? Yeah, I dig it.

I’m sure everyone had it hammered into their heads from grade school on: Don’t wait until the last minute! Get started now. What’s so much different in knowing and not knowing? You’re still here either way. Now you just have a deadline. But we’ve always had a deadline anyway. Not knowing the exact date should make it easier for you to let go of things that don’t matter and don’t serve you. We really have the freedom to do what we want because we’ve always wanted to, not out of obligation. It’s going to happen, and presumably most of us don’t know when. You really don’t have the time you think you do.

Yeah… therapy. But it was fun!

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Image Credits
All images credited to Cy White. .gif created by Cy White.

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