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

CJ, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

From day one. My very first memory is around 1 or 2 years old, of a morning my parents were getting ready for work. My mom plopped me into the corner of our brown flower print polyester sofa and turned on MTV, when they played music videos only. Whitney Houston’s, I Wanna Dance With Somebody. music video is the first time I remember being inspired, drawn to something consciously. Reflecting from present to that first memory, every dot connected, each milestone to living my dreams has art infused within it. Creating it, being in a space created to create, being around those who are doing the creating have been the constant variables. When people say they eat, sleep and breathe something, I truly do. My every living second is consumed with art, even the not so fun times.

That driving desire to make what I see in my mind…my career, my life, my reality honestly feels like it all fell into my lap. Here me out. When these dots fell into my lap, whether or not it was a clear opportunity or whimsical fate, i worked my ass off and did as best as I could at the time. With all my soul. Making sure I had fun, asked all the questions, learned, listened, enjoyed myself and spread that enjoyment with whomever I was crossing paths with. I actively kept myself in check with my “No Complaining Today” rule. With all of these variables, I believe that’s why I have been able to earn a full time living from my creative work. There is something to giving your all to create for others to “be moved” that keeps me working, plus I’m flexible and funny. Who wouldn’t want to work with someone cut from that clothe? I understand this answer is on the “too easy/to good to be true” side, but why can’t the answer just be that simple? Earth is already complicated for some odd reason, why add more complication to life. Be ready, be nice, be inspired.

Currently I’m working on my next milestone/goal to check off the mighty bucket list. I feel like the biggest thing that has slowed down checking this box is postposing the hard parts. Because of life giving me my dream as a career I feel my sacrifice is partially not knowing the timeline. Perhaps I don’t need to speed up anything. I am not immune to sacrifice unfortunately. Living the human experience is hard on many levels. From the paperwork, self-work, endless work all the way to the dirty work can be painful, scary, sometimes boring. But there’s one thing I never get…bored. I like to change a challenge into an opportunity and work from that space. If I knew earlier that going through the hard parts, doing the things you know you shouldn’t put off right now, waiting but being prepared, with a great playlist in hand was the shortest path to living your dreams, I think I would have a couple more boxes checked.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My first job after graduating from the Governor’s School for the Arts High School and a year of training at Denise Wall’s Dance Energy was Sesame Street Live. Toured with them for a few months and moved to nyc. The dance scene is where I found my day jobs teaching dance classes and working for NYCDA. The only two jobs I had that wasn’t on stage or in front of a camera was one day filling gift bags at the Marie Claire’s headquarters from a temp agency (apparently the only thing I was qualified for lol), cashier at RuB BBQ in Chelsea and Bad Burger in the Lower East Side. Booked my first world tour at 19, Broadway at 21and from there the ride was nonstop until 2020. Life shifted to running 9 floral companies and a break from dancing everyday. The art of floral kept me alive, truly. Rest and Flowers.

Slowly got back in the game assisting my dear friend Nicolas with a nylon shoot for Usher, The Devil Wears Prada Broadway Workshop, a choreographer for I Can See Your Voice, a netflix feature with Amy Schumar and of all places, faculty at the Governor’s School for the Arts while finally working on my own scripted comedy that is heavy on the music. It’s not common place to get a re-do with a full arsenal of experience and knowledge in your pocket. And to be back where it all started and catapulted for me, while I embark on this new career milestone is beyond serendipitous. It’s a miracle. It’s my life.

This project parallels my life ever so slightly. I get to witness magic everyday. My friends know that I always say, “if you weren’t here with me to see this with your own eyes, no one would believe me. Everyday is a gag. A blessing and a curse most say.

Stepping into the scripted world at this point in my life seems to make the most sense. I won’t bore you with my resume, cjtyson.com has all you need for that. I’ve always been at the right place at the right time when it comes to any production and it becoming something bigger than itself. I eat, sleep and breathe culture phenomenon and now I get to make the rules. Music and laughter is universal and medicinal. Is it too ambitious to say I’d like to be a part of healing the world? We all need a good laugh these days, a head bop, a sweaty night on the dance floor these days and I have a timeless remedy.

I am most proud of believing and not giving up on myself. There is a method to the madness of my crazy ideas and visions.
And I finally get to share this beautiful madness with not just the new generation of artist but also with you.

Have you ever had to pivot?

2020 was The Pivot. 17 years of Broadway, national and world tours, tv, film, stages. I was ok with this train never stopping. It was fun, it was my dream, what I had always asked for. 2020, the year the world felt like it actually just stopped to reboot and it was pure chaos and magic all at once. I still believe we went through some kind of portal, 2020 was gnarly.
There were no stages to dance on, and no call times to the set. For the first time ever, I had nothing to do. Nothing to wake up and prepare for other than myself.

Later in the year I reconnected with a friend who owns a few floral companies in LA for work until the entertainment world started back up. He was my saving grace. Everyone there was my saving grace. I had worked there previously for a moment in between filming seasons of Lip Sync Battle so thankfully the learning curve wasn’t too steep. Handling logistics for 9 floral companies, flower vendors from Santa Barbara to Columbia to the Netherlands, taking personal orders from every celebrity imaginable for their families, publicist, glam squad, jewelry designer to being one of the first floral companies to partner with DoorDash, it all started to look like I was choreographing an intricate dance piece, the performance, the moment a client reached out to me and my applause, seeing each mother, father, grandma, grandpa, brother, sister, husband, wife’s face when they received their flowers.
After losing both of my closest friends that year, these flowers, started to fill my soul that was depleted at that time.
It was the closest feeling to being on stage and I began to lean into this being my new norm.

In this pivot, I finally learned that I can do all of this, for myself. This eventually led me back to the stage but because I leaned into this pivot and let my mind and body rest, I had this new love for how art can be expressed in so many ways. My world blossomed again, met a whole new energy of people that I now am able to support, collaborate with, share our love for art, beauty and magic in this world and it fills my soul with joy knowing flowers is what led me down this new exciting road.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

Knowing that what has been passed onto, through me, will now be passed to you and this new generation of artist. That even once I am no longer here, my essence will be. To experience the essence of an artist who is no longer with us here on earth through their art expression is the closest form of communication through the realms that there is to me. And I’ll admit, there is nothing that comes close to the feeling of hearing a stadium roar or gag a room watching the screen because they “felt that”. I live for the applause too okay. @cjtyson

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.cjtyson.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cjtyson/
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@cjtysoncjtyson?feature=shared
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/cjtyson?utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

Image Credits

Blaine Pennington

Steven Trumon Gray