We recently connected with Lee Lee La Cubana and have shared our conversation below.

Lee Lee, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

I have always been known to take a risk or two whether that be in fashion choices or career moves. Growing up in urban New York City, my interest in becoming an artist was widely misunderstood which was understandable based on the “starving artist” narrative fed to us by society. Even after attending Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School for Music & Art and Performing Arts which positions creatives to have higher chances in pursuing creative careers, I enrolled in an Environmental Engineering program when I began my college journey because engineering has a great trajectory for society’s definition of success. It was not until after my first year that I understood that success defined by society wasn’t inline with my personal definition for success which is living for myself, my passions and my happiness. I changed my major to Fine Arts and worked my way through school, ending up in the legal field working at the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office. Upon completion of my degree, I was able to take the risk of making a career change to social media management, something I enjoy. While working and pursuing my degree, I looked into ways to maximize productivity which has helped me manage my social media management career, art career, personal brand, influencing, and starting my businesses The Culture Candy and heART Con. As a creative, taking risks and being innovative are always worth the try.

As long as you are doing something that excites your soul, you can’t lose.

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 background and context?

I am a New York City based Afro-Latinx pop-artist who enjoys invoking nostalgia through my art. Using pop-culture references and memories from my experience, I create contemporary pop-art pieces that represent a moment in my life and also provoke a memory or feeling for the viewer. It is like having a conversation with the viewer, connecting our individual experiences through nostalgic response to imagery. Born and raised in the Lower East Side, I create contemporary pop art paintings and mixed media work that play on 90’s pop and urban New York City cultures. This collaboration of ideas is an ode to my upbringing in the 90’s to early millennium in urban New York City, and my roots. Serving as a reminder of internal riches in my community, my art signature is the diamond and aims to spread reminders of internal wealth with my current collection and collaboration with Comfiart.

I am grateful to have shown in exhibitions at galleries and businesses such as EVAC, Chelsea Market, The Grey Dog, Artezen Hotel, Steinway Mansion, BQE Fitness, The Ketchup Gallery, YEMA Calif, Gold Room, Artel, Orange Blossom Miami and more! I believe my consistency and willingness to uplift other underrepresented artists as I grow has positioned me to achieve recognition in my field. I am excited about all the opportunities I have earned throughout my art career thus far and look forward to what’s to come! Nothing is ever given, I have hustled tremendously to make sure that my art has a platform. To be a LIVING artist, you must have a certain level of tenacity to advocate for your art. In 2019, I made a timeline of goals I wanted to achieve as an artist for the following 3 years and made sure I exceeded that list each year.

You also need to have tenacity to start a business. I enjoy curating with my team through my curation company, The Culture Candy, a NYC based arts organization that celebrates urban New York City Culture, the arts, and urban & minority artists by providing upcoming artists with showcase opportunities. You have to think on your feet and develop an innovative mindset to push your business toward success. When you align yourself with your purpose many blessings will come your way, just stay the path and believe in yourself.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

With ample time on my hands during the pandemic in 2020, I not only launched my business but my personal brand as an artist and influencer. I had always been into style and wanted to put time into my self-care and style during the pandemic while working from home. I also wanted to increase my brand awareness as an artist, and what better way to do that than to build my social media audience through influencing. The start to get into any field is to research how others before you have done it, there are many resources online literally giving you the recipe to how to grow your account organically and the only thing you need to add is your own seasoning. Finding your “niche” or authenticity is an important part of building your brand because it makes your account unique in an oversaturated market of influencers and is also an important part of increasing your engagement. People think of social media growth as an increased following, but the tea is your engagement can secure your great deals even as a micro-influencer of less than 10k followers. I secured my first partnership at 2.5k followers with Fashion To Figure. The secret is, by providing a clear and authentic representation of the fashionista art boss side of me online I was able to grow my account engagement toward a high percentage, which means my audience interacts with my content and brands can get personal brand awareness through my smaller account. There are accounts with massive followings and less than 3% engagement on their content for a variety of reasons, if you’re taking the steps to increase your following through creating authentic and unique content on your account, you can position yourself to have an account with high engagement and a steady organic growth.

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

While I believe society can improve its support of visual artists, true to The Culture Candy’s mission, larger society even with steps to improve the creative ecosystem will still favor the majority demographic that’s represented in the art world. It’s up to us as a community to demand support for underrepresented women, minority, and LGBTQ+ artists by putting our economic and social support behind these artists. Support can cost nothing and is worth everything, share artists work, attend shows, like and comment on their feeds, these contributions can make a difference for artists and give them the engagement they need to get noticed. Support can also cost “the price” and purchasing artwork from underrepresented artists to put in your homes, offices, lobbies instead of mass-printed generic “wall art” and “wall decals” can make a huge difference for artists. Always remember, that as an artist grows the value of their work appreciates as well. Invest in artists from your community, the more we support underrepresented creatives the more the art market will shift to creating space for them to get discovered and chosen for opportunities.

Contact Info:

• Website: leeleelacubana.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leeleelacubana/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashley-amber-miah-ba6282195/
• Other: theculturecandy.com nycheartcon.com