We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ray Cunningham. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ray below.

Alright, Ray thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Do you feel you or your work has ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized? If so, tell us the story and how/why it happened and if there are any interesting learnings or insights you took from the experience?

Often times the space black gay men take up in media isn’t the most flattering due to flamboyant stereotypes and hyper-aggressive behavior but for me, being an educated black gay man with credentials, receipts and a backbone made me a threat to the people who wanted me to just be an accessory to the narrative. I admit, I’ve played into the “role” to get the job done and keep the coins coming in but you come to a point where you want to be taken seriously with your thoughts fully understood. I leaned very quickly it’s MY JOB job to use my personal platforms to set the tone for who I am so that when compromising narratives or opportunities arise, my audience can differentiate RAY from my “stage persona” MISSTER RAY.

Ray, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

If anyone keeps it real, it’s me Ray Cunningham, also known as Misster Ray. I’m an award-winning bestselling author, social influencer, reality TV star, host and now actor best known for my ground-breaking and historic participation on America’s first ever Black reality TV series, College Hill as BET’s first ever gay talent. 10 years later, I joined VH1’s Love & Hip Hop Hollywood for 3 explosive seasons.

Known as everyone’s over the top friend in their head with no filter, I have has established myself on various platforms, including TV (recurring contributor on TMZ & Roland Martin’s award-winning News One Now talk show); movies (You Married Dat? & The Assistant); radio (WCDX Power 92 in Virginia & WKYS 93.9 in Maryland); and digital media (hosted and executive produced WEtv’s award-winning longest running digital series Reality Wrap 2013-2018).

I’m a proud two-time HBCU alum of Virginia State University located in Petersburg, Virginia, where I earned a bachelor’s in mass communications and a master’s in media management.
Throughout my now 15+ year career in multi-media, I have developed an extreme passion for HBCUs and political progress for minorities. To me, everything that deals with voting and getting the message out has a correlation to the media. Therefore, I am delighted to be able to combine two of his passions for a common goal through his platforms.

Aside from my community service and busy career demands, now manage the responsibility of being an ambassador for the National College Resources Foundation’s (NCRF) Black College Expo, assisting with recruiting high school students to attend HBCUs all around the country. Additionally, I released America’s first ever Black college novelty board game, Yardopoly, which celebrates HBCU culture and history which is available now on www.thegamecrafter.com (search Yardopoly).

As a celebrated notable public figure in my hometown, I was awarded Richmond Black Pride’s Community Media Award in 2022 and was presented a proclamation from the City of Petersburg by the mayor in 2021 for my humanitarianism and community efforts. More recently, I was announced as one of the 2023 recipients of the Biden/Harris Presidential Award for Community Service and will be awarded along with an honorary doctorate’s degree in Humanitarianism from Leaders Esteem Christian Bible University.

With balancing my commitments both personally and professionally, I continue my work of systemically helping my community and strengthening my platform for better civic engagement while strengthening minority representation in various forms of media.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Creativity is a valuable workplace skill because it can be a useful tool for developing new ideas, increasing efficiency and devising solutions to complex problems.

Almost everything we as creatives decide to do in life, we choose for the reward at the end. We have a job to earn money to pay rent and buy the essentials to survive. We exercise to get the reward of being healthy. We go to college to be rewarded with a degree that allows us to get into the career of our choosing.

But creative endeavors are typically pursued only for the reward of being creative. So, in a way, there is no reward except the joy of creativity itself.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Creativity allows societies to grow through change and accept that things and ideas can evolve over time. This means that art is critical for the flexibility to accept change – which is crucial for societies that need to adapt quickly to survive and thrive.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: missterray804
• Facebook: missterray
• Twitter: missterray