Episode 17 of Don’t F*ck This Up is here, and this week, Lauren hosts an invigorating conversation with writer, creative director and cultural expert, Massaër Ndiaye.
They hash out the realities of working cross-culturally - and across the globe, why chasing relevancy will never satisfy, and the importance of having diverse teams at all levels.
Massaër also lets us in on what it’s like to move from Paris to Menlo Park, how he gained entry to the African Cup of Nations, and why courtroom fashion almost convinced him to pursue a career in law.
Download, review, and follow the podcast so you never miss an episode.
Follow Don’t Fuck This Up on IG: @dontfckthisup.podcast
Follow Lauren Alvarez on IG: @LaurentheAlvarez
Follow Massër on IG: @madsear
Check out Massaër's work: www.massaerndiaye.com
Email the show at advice@dontfckthisup.com for your questions to be answered on an upcoming episode!
Episode 17 of Don’t F*ck This Up is here, and this week, Lauren hosts an invigorating conversation with writer, creative director and cultural expert, Massaër Ndiaye.
They hash out the realities of working cross-culturally - and across the globe, why chasing relevancy will never satisfy, and the importance of having diverse teams at all levels.
Massaër also lets us in on what it’s like to move from Paris to Menlo Park, how he gained entry to the African Cup of Nations, and why courtroom fashion almost convinced him to pursue a career in law.
Download, review, and follow the podcast so you never miss an episode.
Follow Don’t Fuck This Up on IG: @dontfckthisup.podcast
Follow Lauren Alvarez on IG: @LaurentheAlvarez
Follow Massër on IG: @madsear
Check out Massaër's work: www.massaerndiaye.com
Email the show at advice@dontfckthisup.com for your questions to be answered on an upcoming episode!
Lauren Alvarez (00:01)
Hello and welcome. I am here today with Massaer Ndiaye writer, creative director, cultural expert, Massaer. Welcome to Don't Fuck This Up.
Massaër Ndiaye (00:10)
Well, thank you for the invitation, Lauren. Nice to be here.
Lauren Alvarez (00:12)
Yes, great to have you. And I mean, before we get into it, there's a lot I want to talk to you about. I've been waiting for this interview. But let's just start off with the easy stuff. How are you doing?
Massaër Ndiaye (00:25)
I'm doing well. I'm doing well. I'm in Paris right now. It's sort of cold and rainy today, but it's been sunny this morning. So yeah, I can't complain. The year is winding down. The holidays are, you know, everyone is wrapping up their year. So it's like the energy. I think everyone is just like, yeah, with everything that's happening in the world right now, people are reflecting back. So, you know, I'm the same. I'm watching the news that are terrible. And I'm...
I want to see and I'm really aching to be with family in a few days and stuff like that. So as many people must be, I'm sure.
Lauren Alvarez (01:03)
Yeah, and I think it's definitely is worth saying that, you know, this year feels a little different, you know, holiday time. And I think, you know, how much news can you take in? How much, you know, how much time for yourself to unplug because we have to find that balance. And it's been hard. It's been admittedly really hard. So I appreciate you being honest about that too. Yeah. And I think, yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (01:14)
Mm-hmm.
Well, thank you. No, yeah, it is. It is. It has been hard for. Yeah, I mean, it's been hard for like a lot of people from, you know, like, but, but yeah, I think that like we've last year was an outlier with this year. I think people will be very, very excited to see their, you know, their own. And then when you see, you know, children on TV and, you know, not to get too dark, but like that's the reality. Um, you're like, you know, yes, it's time for me to go hug my parents and, and my, and my, and
nephews and nieces and cousins and like everyone and just like appreciate the privilege you can have, you know, in being with family at, you know, in times like that. So yeah.
Lauren Alvarez (02:00)
Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, that's really incredible. And again, like I appreciate the vulnerability. And also, to be fair, it's similar weather here in LA if you want to be. It's actually kind of cold and rainy here. So I'm just going to pretend I'm in Paris. I'm going to mentally be there with you. That sounds way better.
Massaër Ndiaye (02:16)
Well, welcome to Paris then. I always assume that LA weather is like surfing weather, that everyone is in shorts and living the life. So if it's cold and damp, welcome to the club then.
Lauren Alvarez (02:28)
Yeah, I wish. I mean, yeah, I wish. Yes, exactly. I mean, I think that there's a lot, you know, to pull from even you saying, like wanting to go home and, you know, you've been.
truly a global creative, really working in so many cities. I mean, from Paris, being in your native country of Senegal, but also working in Amsterdam. You've worked in the US and some of the largest cities like New York and in the Bay Area. And so I would love to hear kind of for you, like coming up, is it a natural path to go into career in Senegal? I don't know. So what was that like for you? How did you sort of come to being...
Massaër Ndiaye (02:50)
Mm-hmm.
Lauren Alvarez (03:10)
interested and attracted to the creative world.
Massaër Ndiaye (03:14)
I mean, I think it's a great question and it seems like I'm gonna take a lot of time, but I think it's like serendipitous. So like I was born in Paris, so my parents met when they were students. I think my dad had a very, my dad was a teacher, so he had like a very noble idea of teaching and he wanted to go back to Africa.
as soon as he was done and him and my mom were done with their theses. So after that, we went back to Senegal and I don't know that I was destined to be working in like anything creative, but I don't know that I was not either. Like, my mom is a huge music fan. My dad is a huge music fan. I think both of them love movies. So very early on, I was, you know, I was able to, you know, to be brought to the cinema, like going to like a lot of
Lauren Alvarez (03:58)
Mm.
Massaër Ndiaye (04:14)
you know, like concerts. And I was very lucky and some that's something you look in retrospect, but our my parents were like living, you know, in front of a museum. So there was like we were we were actually live Yeah, that is incredible. You actually live in the backyard of the museum growing up. So that's we were literally playing football when they were like exhibits happening. So you basically soak in culture without knowing what you're doing.
Lauren Alvarez (04:26)
That's incredible.
Hmm.
Massaër Ndiaye (04:41)
I think my mom was very adamant in having us be in cultural activities, whether at the museum or at this thing called the Centre culturel français, which was the French cultural center, just for us to be able to go and rent comic books and, you know, renting books, but mostly comic books at the time. My parents were fairly strict, but my mom wanted us to have something other than TV.
Lauren Alvarez (05:03)
I'm gonna go.
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (05:12)
And I have to say, when I was a kid, I loved television. So I loved TV, and I loved watching sports and whatever was happening with you. And she was like, there's no TV during the week, but I could have as many books and images as possible. So that was like a fertile soil for me to be able to be curious and be able to read magazines, watch documentaries, everything that was like knowledge-based. I feel like I had a pass.
So very early on I had that and just being around, you know, my parents, their friends, people who were into the arts was very enriching. And for the life of me, I don't know why, but I started writing very early, like not as a...
Lauren Alvarez (05:53)
Hmm.
Massaër Ndiaye (06:03)
I don't know exactly why, but I just started writing at 11 or 12. So when just, you know, making up stories, short stories, writing stuff like that. So my path into creative was always writing. And as I was the oldest child and, and from my, I had a, I had a bunch of cousins who were older than me, but like from my grandmother, my maternal grandmother's side, I was the oldest. So I could only hang out.
so much with my cousins. So my older cousins were much older from my dad's side. And I would get like, you know, cassettes from like, you know, American hip hop for my cousins who are living in the US already or, you know, like cassettes from Dragon Ball Z from my cousins who are in France and who were like, yeah, absolutely. The zeitgeist at that moment, whatever you need, like they're getting you the illest.
Lauren Alvarez (06:35)
Hmm.
We all have those naughty cousins supplying us with the cultural information. Yes, exactly.
Massaër Ndiaye (07:00)
or the latest manga, Japanese manga, anime and stuff. So just you're getting shots of culture. And Senegal when I was growing up was really cool because we had a lot of, obviously having been an ex French colony, you also had a lot of American influence. So we were getting culture, not only with the cultural, so what was happening in Senegal, but we were getting a lot of
Lauren Alvarez (07:07)
Mm.
Massaër Ndiaye (07:29)
pop culture from all sides and a lot of sports from all sides. So that was really interesting. We had a lot of rap groups at the time in the city. It was really just a very culturally diverse and culturally vibrant city. So that was a moment and I remember being younger and understanding that this is not normal. This is, you know, everyone that I knew at the time was doing something that was like
There was some sort of a Renaissance, I guess, in my high school. I mean, I was not part of them, but there were like two very popular rap groups that literally did have records in the streets. So, but they're older, but still we were looking up to them and being like, wow, they're on TV. But it was, there was that part. And I just was always writing. And I know that I was encouraged. I had my
seventh grade teacher, sixth or seventh grade teacher, Madame Studerre, she was a French lady and she was like, oh yeah, you need to be writing. Then I had another one, Madame Boconde, who was Mrs. Boconde, who was a history teacher and she was like, oh yeah, you're a really, really good writer. And I remember her telling me that I should not go into math for like, you know, to graduate with like a math major. She was like, why would you do that?
So I remember her like very early on her telling me that I should keep writing, that I had a talent. And at the time, you know, when you're young, you just want to do what you want to do. So and I had, and I was lucky enough that my parents were, you know, they actually asked me what I wanted to do, which was, you know, they could have, they could have, I had good grades and that was, you know, that was the main, the principle for them to, for me to be good in school. But like, they just did want me to be happy at some point. So they did let me
Lauren Alvarez (09:04)
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (09:25)
and choose the wrong path for me. But I did. I mean, I went. No, I chose math as a major in high school. So it was math. I don't know exactly how it works in the US, but just you pick subjects and then your specialties are the grade out of 20 is actually multiplied by.
Lauren Alvarez (09:28)
What was the wrong path? What did you first choose?
Massaër Ndiaye (09:52)
coefficient. So it's like math was nine sciences like so physics, physics and chemistry were like six, biology was six, philosophy was four, English four, French four, whatever. So it was like just like science were a bigger number and that was your specialty. So you go there and that's how you graduate your high school. So that was the wrong path because it was I just went into a specialty into something that I did not want to do like all my friends
Lauren Alvarez (10:10)
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (10:21)
Even to this day, I have, you know, my both my veterans are the architects, engineers, pilots. So that's the path they wanted to do, which I really did not want to do anyway. But I did go there. And then. And then when I went to when I went into college, it was I went into law school, because my dad was a law professor. And once again, at the time it was
It was very weird that why I chose that. I don't know. I just, I just, I was enamored with the idea of like being a lawyer. I think in the U S a lot of people love Atticus Finch. Uh, so want to, want to do that. I don't know that I had like a fictional character that wanted me to be a lawyer. I know that I did, uh, an internship when I was 14 in a law firm, which I loved. Um, so I don't know.
Lauren Alvarez (10:54)
Yeah.
Hmm.
What did you love about it?
Massaër Ndiaye (11:14)
I mean, I just felt like I was an adult. Like they brought me to the to the justice, to the to the tribunal. I was, you know, they that like the outfits, which sorry, in Senegal, people had the same robes and not like it. There is a very specific. Absolutely. There is a courthouse outfit that is like, you know, pretty dignified. And then you see like the white, you know, like you have like they have this white tie.
Lauren Alvarez (11:16)
Yeah.
Oh, so there's a very specific outfit for the courthouse.
Massaër Ndiaye (11:44)
It's a thing. So you look at it and you're like, oh, I mean, I actually like the fashion of this. I actually like the, you know, the sartorial side of this. So that was, I don't know, when you're 14, I don't know. I wanted to be Michael Jordan for a while. So you don't necessarily understand that, like, you know, when you don't have necessarily a passion, you just want to do a bunch of things. But hey, so I went and so I went to, so I went back to France. Again, it was like,
Lauren Alvarez (11:53)
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (12:15)
I was supposed to go to the US, but then 9-11 happened and Senegal was in the list of countries that, you know, where you could not come back. We not, we could not come to the US because we did not have like the right passports and then that took a while. So my parents, since my dad did his and my mom, and my mom, uh, both studied in France when we were, uh, when, when I was born, they were like, okay, let's go to France and then see what happens after a few, you know, months and stuff. So I came here and I got a, and I got a.
and I enrolled at the university at the Sorbonne. And I did my studies, but it was not something that I chose. It was just more something that I had to adapt to. And credit to my parents, they were pretty, they rolled with the punches, even though, when I look back at it, I was like, oh, it's funny because 9-11 changed a lot of things in real life for people, but there's also, I'm sure, thousands of people who are in my...
Lauren Alvarez (12:57)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (13:16)
in my situation coming from other countries that were not allowed in the US at the time. I just kept with the writing. And when I started university, I was very fortunate that Le Monde, which is a publication in France, like a very big one, was very close to our area.
Lauren Alvarez (13:23)
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (13:43)
to my university and then I went in there for an internship to just, you know, to write and I think they said no once and then the second time. They sort of gave me some sort of like an internship that was unpaid and it was great because all that.
Lauren Alvarez (13:56)
You're like, if I keep showing up, can I work? Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (14:00)
It was not even that because I think that they like the left them the amount of people that actually applies is nuts. It's like the New York Times. It's like the one of the is the biggest newspaper we have. But it was just that I feel like I just went through the window and then at some point they were like sure like just, you know, send us stuff you wrote and I just, you know, I remember
lying and saying that I had written a bunch of things. I did write a bunch of things, but nothing in music reviews and concert reviews. And then I sent a bunch. I came in and they were like, okay, so we're going to give you this internship. And then once that was written, I just got an email address. And then that email address was like a pass for two or three years, because you would just send an email address to get free...
Lauren Alvarez (14:29)
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (14:51)
entry into concerts and that was all I wanted. And funny enough, since I had my uncle was living in the city, but he was living in Canada at the time, I had family, but they were in the outskirts of the city, so I was back in Paris and with very limited access to my friends and family. So I had to basically build my own family for a few years. And then the first months, just being able to be culturally fed.
Lauren Alvarez (15:21)
Mmm.
Massaër Ndiaye (15:21)
was amazing. So I just, I had this thing, there was this magazine at the time in the city that would show you all the concerts that were there. And I would just like find, you know, that was before internet was heavy. I would just find the address and, you know, and like just like tell them, can I have, you know, can I be on the list? And then I just started doing that. And I barely got like three or four pieces published.
It was just a way for me to be in those places. And it was amazing because at the time I did not even use those powers for evil. It was just like, I want to get a spot in the concert and stuff. So, but I just kept on writing. And then at some point in 2006, yeah, I think six or seven, I don't know. I had an internship at the Fader magazine, but that didn't pan out. But I got to New York.
and they said yes and then they said no. And then thank God I got a friend of mine who's still a mentor of mine and has his own agency, he has a very big magazine right now called Victory. Christopher Eisenberg, he just, shh. I don't know why, we were talking before and then he was like, yeah, if you come to New York, you can intern for us. And then I just interned for him and it's like the love.
Lauren Alvarez (16:33)
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (16:43)
The love was crazy and then like the amount of things that I learned from him was insane. We still talk to this day, we still, hopefully we're gonna work together in the future, but that was like the first time someone actually trusted me. And since I'm like.
Lauren Alvarez (16:56)
Yeah, that's a really powerful moment. I mean, someone hands you the baton and they say, do this thing and you're like, okay, I've been saying I can do this thing for a long time, but like now I kind of got to do it. So that pressure can become something really beautiful if you make the best of it. And it sounds like you had already bolstered your confidence just on your own accord, but then you had to embody it. What was that like for you?
Massaër Ndiaye (17:06)
Yeah.
I mean, it's always interesting when someone tells you, I trust you, and you're like, you don't know me. So I could actually not pan out. But I think that he had this, I think he's a very good judge of personalities and characters and stuff. So he just was like, yeah, you know what, pull up. And I pulled up and they just, I don't know how useful I was in the beginning. That was my first time being in a real.
Lauren Alvarez (17:24)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (17:47)
corporate environment, even though that was not as corporate as someone would imagine. It was very, like it was very much the self starter mentality or startup mentality. And he was just like, yeah, do this and do that and help us do this and help us do that. And I was an extra set of hands. But I had a, you know, fairly, you know, functioning. I had a fairly functioning brain. And one of the things that was interesting was that he
Lauren Alvarez (17:59)
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (18:16)
what a job could be. Because at the time he had a clothing line and he was a content-ass writer, but just understanding brand partnerships and how brands work and how brands strategies work. And he did this thing where he created like a part art, part brand sponsored event with Ricky Powell, the famous photographer, the fourth Beastie Boy of God Rises His Soul.
Lauren Alvarez (18:18)
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (18:45)
And he was, you know, it was just like a very, you know, like a very actively culturally weird, but like in the zeitgeist of culture and music and, and basketball and stuff, I was like, man, like this is, people are getting paid to do this. And I'm like, what do these brands, you know, take away from this? Just like the, so you, you started to understand something when you're not even 20, you're like, oh, that's, that's interesting. And then I met people from brands, people who were like, who, who respected his taste.
Lauren Alvarez (18:51)
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (19:14)
So they were intrigued in what I was doing in those places. They're like, yeah, this French guy from, you know, he's like a very young kid. And it was just interesting because he never shied away. He never, there was never like, you're here to make photocopies and use the Xerox machine or coffee. And he was just always introducing me as his coworker, which was a lot. That bolsters your confidence, as you say. It's like, it's very...
Lauren Alvarez (19:32)
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (19:43)
I think it's a very big vote of confidence. And also you have to repay that because, you know, you're not paid in money necessarily, but like one of the things that you have to do is just like, you know, sweat equity exists and you work for that. And I'm forever in his debt, I think. It's so, so when, like, so I was already in law school. And when I came back to Paris after that, I was like, okay, I need to shift. So that's always what like, what defines, you know, a lot of these choices is that you,
Lauren Alvarez (19:55)
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (20:13)
there's an epiphany and then you're like, oh, I could be doing that.
Lauren Alvarez (20:18)
Yeah. And you were attracted to these arenas. And I think I can really relate to that. I think early on in my career, I was like, that seems like a cool job. Or like, I didn't even know that could be a job, right? Or like, that seems really interesting. You know, I was in the editorial and beauty and space and became really interested in that world and in fashion and publication and what all goes into fashion week. And then you're doing it and you're like, this is a lot of work, but I love it.
Massaër Ndiaye (20:28)
Yes.
Yeah.
Lauren Alvarez (20:44)
But I think there's the glamorous outside and then there's a realistic inside and I found that for me No matter how fatigued I got if I can remind myself like what initially drew me to it. What was interesting That was always something for me to carry forward But also there's that thing that's like the what's next and I think you're very naturally curious I mean, that's very apparent to me that there is that you said point of epiphany, which I think is perfectly set, right? You you're in something and you're like I could keep doing this forever
Massaër Ndiaye (21:03)
Mm-hmm.
Lauren Alvarez (21:12)
but what if, you know, and then there's the next step. So for you, you know, coming from that world, having someone who really trusted you, which that trust goes so far, did you think that also helped you to start to trust yourself? Because I'm hearing this kind of sea change in you believing that you're meant to be in this world versus like, I happen to be here. Is that what you felt?
Massaër Ndiaye (21:13)
Mm-hmm.
I don't know. I think you always have imposter syndrome, whatever you do. I don't think gender or race or anything plays a role. I think that sometimes being empowered helps tremendously for you to be like, I don't have to question why I'm here, but also there's a lot of pretending. Listen, I'm here. I have the badge. I should
Lauren Alvarez (21:38)
short.
Yeah.
Yeah, I have the email address.
Massaër Ndiaye (22:03)
I have the email, literally I have the email address. I have all the credentials, you know, like, you know, physically and metaphorically to be here. So, so when you, when you, and there's tons of stories, but like Chris and Chris and I and another team went to the 2010 African Cup of Nations in Ghana. And literally two or three days before we got, we got there, we had to create fake lavaliers and like fake passes.
for us to get into the stadiums. And we had passes that were better than the real passes. They were like, we were like looking at, I think, I don't know, one of the graphic designers from the team built them. And we had those passes and there were like all the logos that looked like the real ones. And we went there and we saw that the official ones were like super bootleg and we're like, okay. But to tell you how credentials work,
Lauren Alvarez (22:37)
That's amazing.
Massaër Ndiaye (22:59)
That's so funny. That's like, that's what I think of whenever I think of credentials. But to go back to your question, yes, absolutely. When you, when someone tells you, you're good enough to be someplace and then you actually, um, you accept it and then you work your ass off and, and make that a reality and everyone's, everyone's happy. You understand that, okay, so like I've done this one successfully. These people want to keep working with me.
Lauren Alvarez (23:18)
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (23:27)
I need to, you know, I just need to keep the work and like, I think curiosity is the best motor you can have. I don't know. I mean, I don't know a lot of curious people who are sad people. You know?
Lauren Alvarez (23:39)
That's so true. And they're not boring either, which if you're bored, then you're boring. And if you're boring, then who wants to hang out with you?
Massaër Ndiaye (23:45)
Exactly. But even by yourself, if you're curious, you never need to be surrounded by people, you're never superficial, I feel like. So curiosity is always a good trait in people, because you can go and discover the world, you can discover whatever you want to discover, and being able to be around people who are curious, who push you to go and
and be a nerd and nerd out on some certain things is always great. I feel like, you know, meeting people. And that's why I love journalists and I love like certain, you know, you know, trades in life where people just get paid to explore more. Like I've always felt like Malcolm Gladwell is who I want to be when I grow up. Because it was always like when I when I when I realized who that person was, I was like.
Lauren Alvarez (24:16)
the
Massaër Ndiaye (24:42)
man, this is amazing. You just get to deep dive on a subject for like three months and then just like you come out with an article that's like mind boggling. Yeah, that's work that I wanna be in. But it's something that's interesting in curiosity. And I feel like working at the time, working with Chris helped me make that a reality because when you are in law school and then I interned at an insurance company.
Lauren Alvarez (24:43)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (25:11)
Um, there's not, I mean, there's the people were lovely, but the work itself was, was so crushing. So when you, when, when you go.
Lauren Alvarez (25:19)
Oh yeah. I think if you saw my face, I was reacting to you saying like, I knew law school because you said it, but then insurance company, I was like, whoa, this is really boring considering what we know about you now.
Massaër Ndiaye (25:23)
Hahaha
Yeah.
Absolutely. But it was also interesting because you're like, oh, so people who work in insurance and who have to craft, so that was a legal department of an insurance company and they had to craft, you know, insurance contracts for like competitions and like, and at the time when I interned they were doing like, so one guy was doing like a space, so he was doing like the different pieces of a space.
craft was going from Toulouse to Baikonur. And the other one was working on a sailing competition. So it was interesting. That was interesting. And they were crafting those contracts. I had no place being there because I learned a lot. But it was like, as I said, those people were passionate about. One of them was really passionate about sailing. But it was just like,
Lauren Alvarez (26:12)
That is interesting.
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (26:27)
The work itself was so painstakingly detail-oriented that it became boring. I could not sustain that. But it was interesting to see, oh, there are all passions in life and people can make that a sustainable life choice. But that was the moment I did one and the other, I was like, okay, I need to definitely be in something creative or something that I feel like I can have a different day every day. And...
Lauren Alvarez (26:55)
Yeah, I think also like if you spend four seconds looking at your work, you see this real through line. And I know that curation takes time, that it's not like you always are working on the things that are your dream, you know, projects or that you're getting to do things. But you can really see that you have a love for fashion. You also have a love for football. You also have a love for, you know, the editorial space. And I think that finding that balance, you know, I know that there's a lot of
Massaër Ndiaye (27:07)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Lauren Alvarez (27:20)
in between space that comes with that where you're not doing those things and you're not able to work on the dream project. But don't you feel that maybe that prepares you, right, to be that best version of you when you do get that opportunity to go and write for Nike, you're like, I've been waiting for this day.
Massaër Ndiaye (27:21)
Mm-hmm. For sure.
Yes, I mean, one of the things that's cool is that passion. I feel like when you're passionate about something, you always push yourself to kind of give your career an angle to go there, to go somewhere. So yes, when I was like, I had a year, like a gap year, where I had only two subjects at uni before graduating.
Lauren Alvarez (27:48)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Massaër Ndiaye (28:03)
And we were like, a friend of mine was like, hey man, like do you want to help me with this magazine? We want to launch this magazine that's like basketball and it's, you know, with like all the things that are happening outdoors and then we want you to help us because at the time I was writing a lot of articles for a different, for a bunch of different publications. And that was the first time I had to build a vision because literally they were like, yeah, we want to do this and we have, you know, we have some money and then we can.
Lauren Alvarez (28:20)
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (28:29)
distributed through these free magazines. They had the same distribution system as Vice magazine at the time. So I was like, sure. And it took a few weeks and a few months. And then we worked on it. I wrote a bunch of things. And I was like, if this is the same, you understand business models. And then when you don't have that macro vision of the space, you don't necessarily understand what your value can be and how you can be used. And then
Lauren Alvarez (28:53)
Hmm.
Massaër Ndiaye (29:00)
I understood at the time that brands really need to have different touch points with their clientele. At the time, I was like, okay, sports and culture and good photography, good art direction. You start becoming curious. I've always wanted to be a filmmaker, but at the time, I was like, okay, what is this? Again, when you're curious, you go talk to people who have built magazines, and then you start talking to the people you actually were working with at other magazines and ask them...
about who are directed this and then like, how can I get in touch with these people? So you just like start having conversation and sharing conversations with people whose life work has been that, who found their path a long time ago. So they can give you shortcuts into building the perfect magazine. And then you're like, okay, so this is what a corpus is, this is what a body of work is. I get it now. So now if I wanna go from point A to point B,
Lauren Alvarez (29:33)
Hmm.
Massaër Ndiaye (29:58)
point B, I don't have to do everything. I can actually be much closer to what I want to do by working my way through that. And funny enough, actually, when you start working in a lot of... And I feel like that's what makes Nike a very, very good client and then also a brand that keeps being relevant year after year is that...
Lauren Alvarez (30:05)
Hmm.
Massaër Ndiaye (30:26)
very early on they identify, and I hate that word, but the cool kids in the city.
Lauren Alvarez (30:31)
Hey, sometimes you gotta use the word. I hear you.
Massaër Ndiaye (30:35)
So basically identify you and then you start getting, you know, free shoes. And then you start getting invited to places that you don't even know exist because they just create like, and I'm not talking about being an influencer or whatever, but like at the time there was no Instagram. So they had to be the weird kids and then the creative kids that are still in school, but that, you know, they know that they're going to do something at some point that have some sort of cloud, you know, around their friends.
Lauren Alvarez (30:49)
Right.
Massaër Ndiaye (31:01)
And I don't know if it's still the case, but at the time they don't have, didn't have Instagram. They had to have younger people, um, that were just out in parties or at parties and identifying who was the cool, who cool is the best dress and who was the weirdest looking, who was the most interesting DJ or whatever. And, and so Nike, Nike came from like that coolness factor. And then afterwards, when I worked in advertising, it was funny to
bring it full circle and actually write Nike ads and Nike stuff. But I feel like a lot of brands want to be that, but they don't want to do the actual work. And I feel like Nike, I don't know who there, but understood that very quickly that if you want to be cool, you have to have the underground cultures and all the subcultures, you know,
Lauren Alvarez (31:28)
Yeah.
Cause you knew about the underground side of Nike wanting to be the cool kids, right?
Yeah.
Mm.
Massaër Ndiaye (31:56)
They need to understand what was happening in any city in a real way for you to, you know, it coolness at the time cannot come from, you know, a top down. It doesn't happen that way. It's always from the ground up. So, so, so that at the time I was lucky enough to be able to, you know, you know, be in circles that were, that were, that were picked or, you know, anointed.
And it was really cool. It had nothing to do with the work itself, but it was just like a way to see the perspective of the brand and understand why they picked some of us and be like, okay, so I'm not interested in being like a cool kid professionally, but it would be interesting for me to work my way into places like this, even working at Nike or things like that, which never happened, but it was more like, oh, there's a path. There is a path.
Lauren Alvarez (32:49)
And yeah, you could be cool kid adjacent, but you don't have to be that. Yeah. And.
Massaër Ndiaye (32:52)
Exactly, exactly. Cool Kid and Jason is way less pressure.
Lauren Alvarez (32:57)
I agree, I was just gonna say that. I feel like, and you can be observational, you can be curious, you can absorb it, you can be in those spaces, but the pressure is off because maybe you're behind the camera and not in front of it, you know? And I think that there's something beautiful about that. I mean, the word culture, so subjective, so prickly for a lot of people. It means so many different things, but I think when you talk about culture and subculture, I mean, you know, where they're looking to, you know, see what's next.
Massaër Ndiaye (33:05)
Yes.
Lauren Alvarez (33:25)
Where do you draw your inspiration from? I mean, you spoke about a mountain of things so far, which I love that, you know, growing up, you know, with a museum in your backyard to, you know, your parents, you know, being curious about the arts, but then also being in these spaces. When you think about today, where do you draw that inspiration from?
Massaër Ndiaye (33:25)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Um, it depends. It depends. I feel like, I feel like always you have to keep a balance between like conventional arts, I feel and the youth. It's so it's like, you have to be humble enough to understand that the youth needs space because we've been there. We've been the ones that wanted to do cool stuff and we wanted the old guard to actually let us breathe a little bit and not be in our, you know, like not trying to give advice. Um, but just, I feel like.
you have to know what's relevant, but you also have to make sure that what you like is what you like. So I don't necessarily put pressure on myself to know what's new, because I believe that whenever you see something that's good, it's going to gravitate towards you at some point or another. So I don't work in a... I don't come from a scarcity mindset where I'm like, oh my God, if I don't know the newest designer, that means that I'm out of whatever.
Lauren Alvarez (34:19)
Mm.
Massaër Ndiaye (34:42)
I just feel like sometimes you've done the groundwork, you're friends with some of these people, you're friends with some of the influencers of the city or even the world for some of them, but then you don't have to necessarily keep up with everything. I mean, I feel like we're a couple of years away from me just listening to music and be like, I don't understand, I don't get it. I'm sure that's gonna happen at some point in my life where I'm gonna listen to the latest Playboy Cardi and be like, I don't understand this record, I don't understand.
Lauren Alvarez (34:57)
Yeah.
I'm sorry.
Massaër Ndiaye (35:12)
why this is popular. And I feel like it happens to everyone. And it's the same with like paintings and artists. Sometimes I'm even designers, you're like, I don't get it. I don't know why. You know? And then so not making it, I don't have any pressure because that's not the nature of my job. It's more like usually I'm a judge to see what's relevant, why it's relevant, how, where's what city.
Lauren Alvarez (35:23)
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (35:39)
So you understand and you can explain to yourself the evolution of, but you don't have to be a fan of everything. It's like music and cinema. You don't have to love everything. I feel like last year with like everything everywhere, all at once, like when people were talking about it, there was like a real, you know, kiss of like separation of everyone just like asking themselves like.
Lauren Alvarez (35:42)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (36:06)
Do I like this film? Do I love this film? Is it, you know, it was, and the conversations were really fascinating to me. So that's when pop culture does the best. It's like everyone is like asking themselves, how do I feel about this piece? So that you know that it's powerful because it doesn't leave you indifferent. So it's basically that. Like I draw inspiration from everywhere.
Lauren Alvarez (36:09)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (36:35)
And unfortunately, I feel like I don't have enough time to go back to a time where there was no internet. Like for example, right now, I would love to be able to go back to, and I think that like that's my next move is like going back to a library and just like starting to look at like, you know, books and artists and stuff that I feel like there's an era.
Lauren Alvarez (36:43)
Oof. Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (37:02)
that is going to be killed because the internet is so powerful and before that, if you're not a classic or if you're not like a juggernaut of an artist, you might be forgotten.
Lauren Alvarez (37:12)
Yeah. And I think that also, I mean, I have very, you just brought back something that's really special to me when I was younger. I used to go to the library after school every day. I was a really avid reader as a student and not because I had to, but because I wanted to. And I was reading three, four or five books at once. But I would go to the library. That's my thing. I would go to the library and after school and...
Massaër Ndiaye (37:24)
Mm-hmm.
Amazing.
Lauren Alvarez (37:35)
get the old newspaper reels. Now, I had no business looking at these, but there was the, I don't know if you remember this machine, and they would take a giant reel, they'd put it in, and I would look and I would, you know, okay, I'd love, you know, for my birthday, but in 1942, you know, like, look it up and see what happened and see who was born that day and who died that day and what the advertising was. And I didn't think about it like that. I just thought, this is interesting. This is something new.
Massaër Ndiaye (37:42)
Yeah.
Yeah, what happened? Yeah.
Lauren Alvarez (38:02)
And sometimes I'd ask to print out a couple of pages of what I saw and I'd save my allowance to do that. But it's really nerdy as I'm saying it out loud. I realize how nerdy it is, but it's also something that I don't think anybody who's 10 years old now is doing. I just don't because you could go online.
Massaër Ndiaye (38:10)
Yeah
I don't think that, yeah, they can go online. But also, when you say that, it's nerdy. But it's not that nerdy, because if you look at the New York Times, that's a business for them. They actually sell you the cover of the day you were born, and then they have it framed. And so you understand that there's an interest for that. I feel like analog. I mean, I feel analog the same way.
It works with photography and now all the filmmaking that everyone is going back to an aesthetic that had some character, that had some cachet. I feel like you might not be too far off that maybe 10-year-olds or 15-year-olds today might not be interested, but maybe 10 years from tomorrow, people who have actually never, they've never had the stains of a newspaper because they were sweaty and people who don't even know that reality when they get to their mid-20s.
Lauren Alvarez (39:04)
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (39:11)
would actually want to have something tangible. So I don't believe that this is necessarily done. I'm actually curious to see what libraries will look like in a few years.
Lauren Alvarez (39:14)
Yeah.
Yes, because they do serve such a purpose and I always see them as a community hub. It's interesting now having a child, people are like, oh, have you checked out this storytime at the library? And I'm like, I haven't been to the library definitely since I lived in LA. I would go in New York because it's beautiful. But I haven't been to the library here, but sure, we could check that out. But I think there's an opportunity there to see what people get to experience. But
We look for these hubs in our communities to be physical in person and in real life. And those are fleeting. They're, you know, I've seen companies popping up that are trying to create ways for people to come together in person, which feels, you know, we're going acoustic. We're trying to.
Massaër Ndiaye (39:52)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
But it is interesting. I've read an article about, I think it was in Denmark, where older people would come and tell stories to younger people about books they've read. Because, of course, a lot of the older guard are very, very lonely throughout the long winter months. And that's just the reality of capitalist society.
But it was interesting to see, like to give new purpose. And I hate to say it that way, but to give new purpose to like an older generation that feel like they're useless. They're not useless, but there's like, there's such a demand to have everyone be useful to capitalism these days that, you know, once people retire, they feel like they're an old car. And then an old car can be an old car, it can be a classic. If we look at all of ourselves, it'd be like we could be a classic car.
Lauren Alvarez (40:38)
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (41:00)
I mean, that's actually a much more interesting way of looking at them. Like they have a wealth of knowledge. You can learn so much from them. But to go back to your point, a lot of the people who go to libraries, I feel like sometimes you buy a book and go to a library, but like a lot of people don't have the opportunity to share. You don't have the opportunity to actually share like these stories. I mean,
Lauren Alvarez (41:25)
Hmm.
Massaër Ndiaye (41:30)
Like the book clubs to me, I've never been part of a book club, but I'm seeing a few book clubs, you know, pop in since Clubhouse on social media. I'm seeing. So there is a demand. There are definitely people who love, you know, books and, you know, knowledge and who want to share that knowledge. I feel like most of the entertainment that we get today is based on books anyway. And I hope that continues that way. But it was it's just a very interesting.
Lauren Alvarez (41:37)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (41:58)
way I'm curious I don't have any I don't have any I not idea but I don't have any preference but I would love to see what like a you know what like a librarian looks like in 10 years now that like most of our books are going to be audiobooks soon you know most like the not that the physical aspect of a book is more important than what's inside the book but I want to know what a library what libraries are going to be in a few years like because you know people have tablets now so.
Lauren Alvarez (42:12)
Yeah.
Should we print the transcripts of this podcast and put it into a book and put it in the library? Sneak it in. Yeah, we'll sneak it in. Perfect.
Massaër Ndiaye (42:35)
We should sneak it in and just see how many people actually borrow it. I mean, actually, yeah, my ego is not that big. I don't think people are going to learn so much from this interview, but you should do a collective collection. Once you do 100, you can just publish that. People will probably have use for that, I'm sure.
Lauren Alvarez (42:57)
Yeah, we'll collaborate on the coffee table book to come. Yes, I love that. I wanna go back to something that you mentioned too, cause I think that there's an opportunity, I think we have a lot of listeners looking to stay authentic with what they're inspired by. And I think that you spoke about something that's so important to me is to not be like everybody else, to not worry about what everyone's doing. What advice could you give to someone who is maybe struggling with that tension between having their own vantage point and still wanting to be relevant?
Massaër Ndiaye (43:00)
Let's do that, let's do that for sure.
Wow, that's a great question. I think my feeling is, and that's something very cliche that you read a lot on Instagram, but you cannot be anyone else but yourself. So you're the first you. So once you understand that, and once you start valuing your experience and the sum of experience you've had,
You can definitely, you can definitely, and it doesn't matter how, but you can make a list of things that makes you uniquely you. You can make a presentation of how would I sell myself in a 30 second elevator pitch to someone else. But there is such, I mean, there's a reason why there's something that's called a mainstream, but there's always going to be people who are more relevant than you. There are always going to be people who are more...
not interesting than you, but let's say for example, you have the opportunity to open a grocery store. You can be like a very small specialized grocery store that like sells Italian goods from like Puglia and you're like tiny and you make sure that every single one of your products is very, very well made. You can have traceability that's crazy or you can be, I'm not going to say a brand name, but you can be like a very big.
grocery store with like you know all the brands that everyone knows. At the end of the day you guys are going to the same vacation spot and you guys are have the same problems of employees and like paying your bills but you can you can you can make sure that you can have a living that you are happy and proud of and it doesn't have to be like everyone it doesn't have to be to the taste of you know everyone does not love Italian food so you can you can actually be
Lauren Alvarez (45:04)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Massaër Ndiaye (45:22)
like this, you can have your little store, like tiny store and sell what you want to sell. We were talking about bookshops earlier. You can be a Barnes and Nobles or you can be like a very nice library that's selling, you know, 10% of what Barnes and Nobles has, but like just like the selection and the curation is impeccable. So you will find your people. Like today, I feel like it's not about who you are necessarily, but like it's more like what, who you cater to. And then people actually try to find their tribes.
Lauren Alvarez (45:30)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (45:52)
People try to find people who are, you know, who have things that are relevant to their interests. So you don't need to, you know, I don't think that the chase is worth it. I feel like I might be wrong, but I'm not necessarily convinced that chasing relevance or relevancy is something that you have to do.
Lauren Alvarez (46:05)
Mm.
Yeah, and very few people can do that and stay relevant. So at some point you're going to land on a space that people just see you as and then you become pigeonholed. And maybe that wasn't even what your intention was, but all of a sudden that's the kind of grocery store you have or the kind of artist you are or the kind of books that you write. And so why not just stay true to what you want the whole time? So when people land on you, they're landing on what's real as opposed to what you fabricated. And I think that is...
Massaër Ndiaye (46:22)
Yes.
Yes.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Lauren Alvarez (46:46)
It's great advice and advice that, you know, I think people struggle with imposter syndrome or am I supposed to be here? But then the other thing is like, show up as you and yeah, you're supposed to be there. Like the right people will come around you.
Massaër Ndiaye (46:55)
Mm-hmm.
Absolutely. And authenticity is a luxury, to be honest. I mean, I think when I say that, I'm sure it comes from a place of privilege, but also like...
I don't know how to be anybody else but myself. So like when you, and I'm sure it's like the case for 99.99% of the population. You cannot pretend to be someone else. So yes, I feel like, you know, dig deeper into who you are and your interests and your curiosity, especially in like the creative arts, rather than trying to see what everyone else is doing. Because at the end of the day, the people you're copying, they're already doing their own path. So it's always tough to...
I feel like it's always tough to have to play catch up because at the end of the day, if it's not you, you cannot, you cannot own that, that initiative of like, this is my idea. This is what I want to be doing. And it must be, it must be nerve wracking.
Lauren Alvarez (47:51)
Yeah.
Totally. I mean, speaking of nerve wracking, I'd be remiss not to mention that you made a pretty big move. You were at an advertising agency in Paris. You moved to Menlo Park to join Metta. I'm just gonna call it like it is. Paris to Menlo Park, kind of a culture shock, if I had to guess. You lose the walkability, that's for sure. I mean, when you think about what you just said about authenticity and showing up in places,
Massaër Ndiaye (48:10)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, it was.
for sure.
Lauren Alvarez (48:25)
Can you talk about that transition? Because I think oftentimes, and I'll preface this by saying, I think, I'll say especially Americans, I think there is this kind of romanticized version of like, I'm gonna work in another country, I'm gonna expand, but there's obviously challenges and complications that come with that. Then you layer on top of that agency space going into big tech, that's another transition. What was it like for you? What can you share about that experience?
Massaër Ndiaye (48:47)
Mm-hmm. That is.
I mean, it all comes down to curiosity, honestly. It started with that because I worked for a few tech companies while I was in the agency world. And it was interesting, and I was intrigued. And same, you always like smarts. So you like people who are like, this is, these are the people who are building the future, for better or worse. They have the infrastructure. They're the ones that are deciding what the world is going to look like.
Lauren Alvarez (49:05)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Massaër Ndiaye (49:24)
Um, and then at the end of the day, when, when that, you know, offer comes in and you start talking to people, you understand, you're like, okay, so I can be in this site on the sidelines and, and just be a spectator or I actually want to know how, how these people think, like what, what makes them tick, are they as good as I hope they are, uh, am I as good as I, as I think I am, there's, that's also that, that competition and that, that drive of like, I want to, I want to see how I measure.
Lauren Alvarez (49:53)
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (49:54)
in places like those. So that was, Menlo Park was not a factor. Like at first I was like, you know what, I'm going to the Bay Area and then we'll see. Once I arrived and I was in corporate housing in, what's the name of that city? It was Sunnyvale. It was called Sunny Jail. No offense to anyone who's from Sunnyvale.
Lauren Alvarez (50:19)
Oh no.
Massaër Ndiaye (50:23)
But it was very much all work, no play. And in a very interesting environment where people are like, I've never worked with people as that smart in my life. People were so driven. It's a very interesting adjustment, because when you come from creative, there's always the moment where you have to give yourself some time to understand what's happening in culture. And they need to understand what's happening in culture for them to stay relevant.
And I feel like I don't know that like, you know, people who work in tech value that much. I feel like a lot of people who are engineers believe that like once they make something, people are just going to flock to it. And I feel like that's when a company like Apple understands like the importance of being in this, I guess of culture at all times because, you know, perception on who you are is important. Perception of the founder is important. Perception is reality, especially in that space.
Lauren Alvarez (51:11)
Yeah.
Yes.
Massaër Ndiaye (51:20)
So it is a very interesting friction. Menlo Park didn't feel like a real place for better or for worse. It just felt like you feel like you're in an experiment. But also, there's one thing that you never get to experience when you're growing up and then you go to high school in a city and then university in a city. You don't have a campus.
Lauren Alvarez (51:32)
Totally.
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (51:49)
Whereas Americans, they might not even understand how, I mean, you're from New York, but they don't understand how insane and fascinating it is for us to look at a Van Wilder film or whatever film that was happening on campus and imagine, man, if I had gone to school with like, my city, my life would be only with people I went to school, that would be incredibly different. And I feel like a lot of these tech companies continue that life.
Lauren Alvarez (52:05)
Ha ha
Massaër Ndiaye (52:18)
That was to them, I guess, the zeitgeist or like the zenith of like what cool life was, like being in sweatpants and just like playing ping pong and then working and getting, you know. Oh, so this is the moment I get canceled.
Lauren Alvarez (52:30)
having babes everywhere. And I'll go.
Yeah, no, that was not a setup. Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (52:40)
But no, but it is very interesting culturally to see like, oh, this is how they, because for, again, for lack of a better term, that's how they imagine the perfect world to be. So it is on the outskirts of a big city, lots of fresh air, obviously, lots of merch, lots of company loyalty, and then like a lot of things that do not necessarily,
Lauren Alvarez (52:52)
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (53:09)
that are not necessarily part of the way I would have described a healthy work environment before. So you learn a lot of things and you're like, okay, so these people are onto something for a bunch of different places. And obviously, nothing is perfect. So sometimes you are isolated from the real world. You're isolated from a lot of things. These are cultures that are very different. There's not, in my opinion, there are not enough cross-pollination between brands. There's not enough, they're so in that,
Lauren Alvarez (53:15)
Right.
Massaër Ndiaye (53:39)
competition with one another that they don't necessarily understand how they could bring, how well they could be perceived, and how much better their products could be if they were collaborating with one another. But definitely, I mean, I would only advise people to just, at some point, you need to just get out of your comfort zone sometimes. It's never a bad idea. You can always go and be like, OK, this is too much for me. And then you go back to something else. But like, you know.
Lauren Alvarez (53:40)
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (54:09)
jump in the water, you might swim. Like that's, if there's an advice, that's the advice. Like, you know, try it, try things. Like it's a...
Lauren Alvarez (54:12)
Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, what do you think companies, and this is outside of just talking about Metta, but what do you think companies get wrong about their approach to hiring employees, you know, I'll say cross-culturally or from, you know, there's such an attraction to global talent, but then how you onboard someone, you know, and I obsessively, you know, coach executives on like, yes, you can hire the best people in the world, but if you can't figure out how to get them to stay, to retain your top talent, to really grow your people,
Massaër Ndiaye (54:33)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Lauren Alvarez (54:45)
What do you think that companies get most wrong having seen so many different environments?
Massaër Ndiaye (54:50)
Um...
So I'm going to take, before answering the question, I'm going to take an example, which I feel like is, at the moment, is one of the best adaptation examples we have, which is the NBA. So when you look at the NBA, David Stern, no longer with us, they started doing all these camps all over the world, in Europe, in Africa, in Asia, to grow the game.
Lauren Alvarez (54:57)
Great.
Mm.
Massaër Ndiaye (55:22)
quote unquote. So the NBA is not going to move from the US. They're going to be 30 franchises. They might have one in Mexico, but like they have one in Canada, they're not going to move from North America. However, the last five years you're the MVP of the NBA was a Serbian guy, Cameroonian guy from Cameroon and a Nigerian guy from Greece. So for the past five or six years,
the best player in the NBA was not born in the US. So that shows you that you can go and find talent everywhere, but you actually need to make those people comfortable enough for them to be successful for you. Taking my own example, I have to give credit to Metta when I was coming in because they were very, very patient. When I was coming in was just after the Trump administration had gotten into power. So there were a lot of.
Lauren Alvarez (55:53)
Right.
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (56:19)
friction as to how to get people in the US from, how to get foreigners into US companies. So there was a lot of patience happening. So I do give them credit for that. But at the end of the day, when you look at all of these companies, I feel like one of the things that really, that they lack is I feel foreign leadership. I feel like a lot of times they forget.
that when you get foreign talent, you need to get foreign perspective. You cannot only get like-minded people or people, especially when I look at a lot of these tech companies that are made of Mavericks. When you look at, and I don't wanna, it's like Meta, Google, Oracle, Apple, whatever. Whenever they get leaders in European and like,
Lauren Alvarez (56:51)
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (57:16)
Asian countries, they took political leaders or ex-political leaders, which is very, they don't take engineers. So you are literally changing the nature of your company. And I understand everything they do to try to settle themselves and to set themselves up for success with taxes and political climates and all that. But I feel like sometimes getting in people...
Lauren Alvarez (57:19)
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (57:45)
to stay at the company, you need to understand context. Like when I was in Metta, it was always interesting to see all these Indian engineers that they brought in. And the engineers had to adapt. And of course you have to adapt to a country to an extent, but when you hire that much of a massive workforce from a specific space, you do need to make an effort. I feel like American companies have had such an...
Lauren Alvarez (58:08)
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (58:14)
strong cultural stronghold on the rest of the world that they did not feel that necessity. I feel like today having TikTok being the most vibrant cultural force in the planet is going to shift that a little bit. I'm curious to see how that works out. The same way in the music business, this is the first time in our lifetimes where the coolest music is not coming from the U.S. Even though they're trying, they're trying to co-op that.
Lauren Alvarez (58:18)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (58:43)
you can like that's not happening there. So you will have to have, you know, American companies and American, um, you know, record labels have to, are going to have to move to Africa. If they, if they want to be relevant when you talk about, when we talked about like me, you know, authenticity being a luxury and all that, it is a luxury to actually have been, you know, been born in New York city and having have it be the birthplace of hip hop. But at the end of the, at the end of the day, hip hop is 50 this year. And
Lauren Alvarez (58:54)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (59:12)
So it's an old genre and you have new genres. So people are gonna have to move and go find it somewhere else. Even if it's to bring it back to the US for US audiences, it is an interesting dynamic. And then to go back to your question, I think it's all about being adaptable. I think that you need to, if you're an executive that understands the need for your company to have...
a different perspective and that perspective needs to come from, you know, someone from a Latino heritage because, you know, that's a big part of your business. Someone coming from India, someone coming from Africa, Asia, whatever. Someone who's not coming from Bicoastal America or white, you know, Europe. You absolutely need to give them space. You absolutely need them. You need to comfort them in the fact that they belong, as you said earlier, you need to give them space for them to actually be able to develop a thinking.
Lauren Alvarez (1:00:00)
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (1:00:10)
to understand all the context that they need to understand so that their brain can function at 100%. And then the more trust you have, the higher the clip, your intellectual clip is going to be. And I feel like certain leaders nail that. And some people really do not understand what that entails. And a lot of companies, you know, that...
Lauren Alvarez (1:00:31)
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (1:00:37)
that shows, you see some places that are in dire need for a different perspective. And I remember, I don't wanna put anyone under the bus, but I remember a few years ago, a company trying to call, they had like a vending machine that they called Bodega or something like that. And that was a very, like that's a very...
culturally relevant name and that's like a, you know, it's like a charge name. And they called it that, not knowing what that meant. And people on social media really rebelled against that. They're like, no, I'm from New York and my bodega guy has a name. And he basically, you know, signs packages for me because I've known him for 17 years. And people really had a cultural, you know, response to that. So sometimes being in a vacuum and like you, and that's what happens in those places where
Lauren Alvarez (1:01:26)
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (1:01:32)
There's not enough diversity. There's not enough, you know, and I'm talking about, you know, sexual orientation, race, religion, you know, like all of the, all of the things that actually are, create diversity are non-existent. So sometimes the people, and they're mostly lovely. I don't, I don't believe that people do things from a malignant, um, you know, point of view, but sometimes it's just a lack of perspective and then the vacuum, you know, seal that you are. Like I read that Zara.
Lauren Alvarez (1:01:38)
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (1:02:02)
a few days ago had to take back a campaign that they had with people wrapped that looked like the bodies that are happening in Palestine. And you were thinking, oh, they're not a bad company. They're not trying to have people. I don't know that they're a good or bad company, but what I'm saying is that nobody wants to sell things off of trauma. But I'm pretty sure people who made that decision were just all in their own vacuum of like
Lauren Alvarez (1:02:31)
Totally.
Massaër Ndiaye (1:02:32)
You know, without a context, it's like at the time of like the smartest monkey in the in the in the jungle with H&M, you're like, as a black man, I felt offended as a marketer. As a marketer, I was like, I'm sure there were four people in that meeting and nobody just nobody black was like, oh, you cannot compare a black kid to a monkey. And that's it. That's one conversation. And that's and that's what the you know, like the context helps culture helps diversity helps.
Lauren Alvarez (1:02:42)
Yeah.
Right.
Massaër Ndiaye (1:03:01)
in places like that. So we've had multiple examples and I feel like sometimes giving people space, giving them confidence to talk, to speak up, try to not tokenize them. Because when you're the only black person in a meeting, you can be like me where I'm like fairly, you know, I've been empowered years ago, so I do feel like I can do it when you're much younger, when you're a young lady, when you are, you know, like...
Lauren Alvarez (1:03:12)
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (1:03:29)
you know, a gay man or something that you feel like you're a double minority. Sometimes you don't feel comfortable enough to say, Hey guys, we might not, we should not be calling this product this way. We should not be doing this. We should call out things in general. So I feel
Lauren Alvarez (1:03:42)
because it's fatiguing as well. I mean, you realize like also there's a fatigue that comes from that. And as someone who's been in that position, but also has opened my mouth, so other people didn't have to. Sometimes that's the opportunity that you see if you feel empowered, because people have emboldened you, you've probably had to speak up when it wasn't even something that was representative to you. You're just like, hey, is anybody gonna say this? I'm gonna say this, right? And I think, I mean, I thought back to when you talked about the H&M campaign, there's that.
Massaër Ndiaye (1:03:53)
Absolutely.
Mm-hmm.
That's, yeah.
Lauren Alvarez (1:04:10)
LeBron James and Giselle cover from Vogue where they likened him to King Kong. Exactly. And that was extremely problematic and polarizing for a million reasons, but also just not actually having someone in the room to call these things out. And then I think a lot of companies, and I've seen it in fashion, have tried to overcorrect. I mean, Gucci did this, they got in trouble. Then they were like, we're hiring a global head of diversity and inclusion.
Massaër Ndiaye (1:04:15)
to King Kong, yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Lauren Alvarez (1:04:38)
And it's like, okay, and then since then, what have you all done? Crickets.
Massaër Ndiaye (1:04:42)
No, because nothing, because a lot of these companies, they, again, they want to sell products. So they're not necessarily in the political business. So, and a lot of what happens is people hire people who look like them, who think like them, who've been to the same schools as them. So the ways of thinking are more similar than they are not. So you actually have to make an effort to make sure that people that you surround yourselves or yourself with.
Lauren Alvarez (1:04:56)
Mm-hmm. That's right.
Massaër Ndiaye (1:05:11)
are younger, different, weird, that makes you uncomfortable sometimes, that are outspoken. And that's why being a leader today I feel is very tough because unless you are in certain businesses, you absolutely need to make sure that everyone can... And I'm not saying to put everything in a vanilla world, but you need to understand that these things matter, that people
Lauren Alvarez (1:05:18)
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (1:05:41)
Asking Kong, not a good look for me. Even though LeBron James was himself in that photo shoot and had people there as well, but you don't know what those people look like and what they feel like or how, Andy Leibovitz told them that it was gonna look like. And also it was, yes.
Lauren Alvarez (1:05:47)
Sure.
And again, it goes back to your comment on perception, right? It's the perception, agnostic of the intention, the perception is what remains, because the intention is never spoken about after the shoot, but everything is felt from what they're experiencing in real time.
Massaër Ndiaye (1:06:06)
Yeah, absolutely.
Exactly. And it's a gut feeling. People see that and they're like, oh my God, why? You know, why would you have like Giselle, who's like a tiny feet woman with this man, who is a freak of nature, but the way you make him look, you make him look like a gorilla. And that's something that someone should have put the kibosh on at some point.
Lauren Alvarez (1:06:21)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (1:06:39)
But sometimes it happens and then you have to go in and create these false narratives of like, we're bringing in a head of diversity. You would not need one if your team was diverse enough.
Lauren Alvarez (1:06:51)
And forget ahead of diversity, why not just have diversity at every level? Because if you have a head of diversity, they're only going to be able to affect so much, but I think you need to build it in at every level and make it part of the conversation. And I think, I mean, also talking about, you know, you mentioned this with like the influence of music. I mean, I think that there's been this surge of interest in West African culture, specifically music, art, all of it. And then there's like these moments where it's like, is it cultural plagiarism? Is it?
Massaër Ndiaye (1:06:58)
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Mm-hmm.
Lauren Alvarez (1:07:18)
appropriation, is it exciting in some capacity to see Senegal on the map gaining attention that it's so deserving of, changing the perception? For you personally, how do you hold balance with that? Because it is so subjective and I can see that challenge and also the opportunity there.
Massaër Ndiaye (1:07:36)
I mean, as a Senegalese boy, I mean, I love that. I mean, I know that there's a narrative in the US about cultural appropriation and obviously the representation. And that's a very important thing when you grow up in white-dominating or dominated societies. And I understand that coming from growing up in Africa, I never had that problem.
Lauren Alvarez (1:08:03)
Right.
Massaër Ndiaye (1:08:04)
But also, we took so much from other cultures. We have the realities of our own musical genres and stuff. But when I was a kid, I was listening to rap. I was not listening to traditional Senegalese music. I was listening to rap music from Senegal, from France, from the US, from everywhere that I could understand. So it is, so to speak, cultural appropriation, even though all the older heads would be like, no, this is actually, this comes from like,
Lauren Alvarez (1:08:20)
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (1:08:34)
this particular genre of music in West Africa, in the Congo, and that's what people are using that, and then the orishas in Cuba, and then all those songs and the genres that are in Brazil, and then it came back from the Mississippi or whatever. You understand that culture, I feel, is fluid. So I'm not an arbiter of culture. I'm not someone who will stop a kid in Mali because he's doing graffiti.
Lauren Alvarez (1:08:54)
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (1:09:05)
on a mosque, you know, because he's seen it in some, he's seen it somewhere. At some point it's always youth, you know, the youth is always going to win. And they feel like, you know, there's, there's no reason for me to be obsessed with kung fu movies growing up in Senegal, but yet I was, there's no reason for, you know, people to these days in Senegal to be obsessed with like Indian, uh, soap operas and like, you know, Bollywood films. But at the end of the day,
Lauren Alvarez (1:09:06)
Right.
Hehe
Massaër Ndiaye (1:09:35)
I love the fact that I hear on Senegalese TV that someone got a scholarship to go and study in India because he learned the language watching Bollywood movies over and over and over again. That is incredible. So I do love the fact that you have the BNL of the Dakar BNL putting forth a lot of the classical artists, like the painters, the plastic arts, the... The...
Lauren Alvarez (1:09:46)
That's incredible.
Massaër Ndiaye (1:10:02)
the sculptors and everyone who is doing beautiful arts today and pushing them to a global market and giving them opportunities. I love the fact that a Ghanaian painter like Amarko Guafo can go on a Dior campaign, but he also can go to space. And then Kehinde Wiley, even though he's American, he's also kind of Nigerian and lives in Dakar, Senegal and gives so much opportunity to different artists.
I love that. I love the fact that the world and I feel it's long overdue that the world is actually looking and by the world I mean you know America and North America and Europe is looking somewhere else for new for freshness because Japanese art has been amazing for decades. African art has been amazing for decades. A lot of these people did not have the means.
And now I love the fact that there's like filmmaking schools and like art, art schools and like stuff that are, that is opening at a rapid space today. When you're finally and long overdue, but like at the end of the day, I'm, I'm always more like, I'm always ready to embrace someone. And I'm not going to tell you, listen, it's too late. No, actually, if you, if you, if you're an American and you have cloud and you have, you know, friends,
Lauren Alvarez (1:11:09)
Fucking finally, right?
Massaër Ndiaye (1:11:28)
No, bring them in. Come and discover all the art, the food, and everything you can steal. I love the fact that Ludwig Jørgensen came to Senegal and found Babamal and put that music in Black Panther. I love that. I love the fact that we're a 14 million people country, and then the biggest Black movie of all time, Black Panther, the music is literally traditional Senegalese music. That's insane. And that's a Swedish white man.
Lauren Alvarez (1:11:58)
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (1:11:58)
that we owe that to. And I'm like, this is great. I'm not trying to look into how that happened and whatever. I know that Babamal got paid. I know that he was on that. He created a music festival that is in the east side of Senegal near the Mali border. And I love that for us. I love that there's a generation that is going to think, oh, the music of Black Panther was made by someone who never left Senegal.
He made a career of being an artist that was in Senegal, that was respected in Senegal, that people love his music. He toured all over the world, but he came back home every time. And I love that someone who starts tomorrow is like that. I want that for myself. I don't have to go and live in London. I don't have to go and live in New York to be relevant as a global artist. And that's tough. And that's amazing. You have Rosalia is the biggest pop star you have or Bad Bunny or...
Lauren Alvarez (1:12:41)
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (1:12:54)
I love the fact that the world's epicenter when it comes to cultural relevance is not New York City or Los Angeles anymore. Even though that's where you have the largest amount of money, like the most money, they need to look at us. And when I say us, I'm like the geographical South, but I'm talking about Asia and Latin America at the same time. Pop culture is open. And yeah, as you say, finally. And even in...
Lauren Alvarez (1:13:02)
Yeah.
Finally.
Massaër Ndiaye (1:13:22)
And even as companies, I'm like, guys, you open your eyes, like your wallet is going to thank you. Like, Africa is the youngest continent by far. That's where you should be investing, because that's where your money is going to be made and eventually. So
Lauren Alvarez (1:13:30)
Yes.
Yeah.
And as you said, the youth is always going to win. So it's like always. And so put your dollars toward, you know, the people who are actually going to, you know, grow that culture and naturally be interested versus people who are going to die sooner, let's just put it plainly, you know.
Massaër Ndiaye (1:13:44)
Always, always, always. Absolutely.
Yeah, I mean, that's the right order of things and we're all gonna die someday. But yeah, I feel like I understand the debate on cultural appropriation and I respect it. I just feel that from my perspective, I love to see new artists being represented by global galleries. I love to see people getting that stage finally. And I'm like, I love that. I love that, you know, like an Ola Olu Sloan has made the Brits.
I don't want to be dropping names, but it's just like, he's 23. You have African kids who grew up in Africa, actually, and unfortunately for them, people from my generation will never get the fruits of their labor. But still it's fine. Having a 23-year-old getting those honors is amazing. So it's always good to see that transition happen. And this is the first time in our lifetime, so I'm relishing in that energy now, to be honest.
Lauren Alvarez (1:14:56)
I think that's really beautiful. I mean, thinking about the energy and how you're embracing it, and also knowing we have only so much time together, what goals are you pursuing right now? Like, what's bringing you to that next level?
Massaër Ndiaye (1:15:10)
At the moment I'm like excited. I wrote my first screenplay when I was 17. So not really, but like it was funny. Oh, that I did it. Yes, sure. I mean, but it was, it was so, and I feel like I've been putting this off for, for a long time. So right now I want to, I want to, I want to focus my energy into, into making films. So.
Lauren Alvarez (1:15:17)
Amazing.
But I mean that you did it. Ha ha ha.
Massaër Ndiaye (1:15:36)
Obviously, this is always like, as we were talking about earlier, like publications and stuff is always a side hustle. But I feel like the longer you live, the more things you have to say. And then the phenomenon is that you see that you want to comment on, you know, in a way or another, I want to make movies. And then, like, I feel like that's the next step. I don't know if it's in five weeks, five months, five years, but like, that's what I'm excited about. Like, I want to be writing stories that interest me. And then.
Hopefully we can find some people around along the way that can be interested in those. But that's what I want to be doing next for sure.
Lauren Alvarez (1:16:12)
And something tells me that those will be very interesting to people, not just you. I'm here for it. Yeah. Where can people go to learn more about you and the work that you're doing and what you're up to?
Massaër Ndiaye (1:16:16)
Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully.
Um, I mean, they can find me on social. So it's at Matt sear. So it's M A D S E A R. So an Instagram on Twitter. Um, I have a website that's called, uh, Masai on the I that comes. So it's like M A S A E R N D I A Y E. But if they go on my, um, thank you. So that would be so, so those, that's where my portfolio. And then I do a lot of interviews for.
Lauren Alvarez (1:16:44)
We'll link it in the show notes too. Yeah, of course.
Massaër Ndiaye (1:16:53)
for different magazines and podcasts and stuff. And stuff, thank you. Yeah, so that's actually how I stay engaged in culture. So that's why I try to keep up with what's happening. So usually on social and that. And I'm gonna make sure that more of my personal work gets through my socials. That's my 2024.
Lauren Alvarez (1:16:54)
Yeah, you do. Those are really exciting, too.
Massaër Ndiaye (1:17:21)
I need to just like share more of the work that I've been doing like personally rather than just like putting it on my website and waiting for people to find it. But yeah.
Lauren Alvarez (1:17:30)
I think it's a good intention to set going into the new year. And I know maybe we all be a little more open about what we're up to, because it's hard to put it out there, because it feels a little scary, honestly. But I think you should be really proud of the work that you're doing. Masayir, what's one final thought you want to leave our listeners with today?
Massaër Ndiaye (1:17:36)
Yes.
Thank you.
I mean...
The name of the podcast is Don't Fuck This Up. I don't necessarily agree with the Don't Fuck This Up. I mean, unless it's very bad consequences. I've always been inspired by my, the first agency I worked at had a mural that said, a white wall is a wasted opportunity. And there was like,
Lauren Alvarez (1:17:57)
That's right.
Massaër Ndiaye (1:18:23)
the best advice I've ever gotten from someone working there was like never ask for permission, but for forgiveness. And I feel like sometimes when you, it's so tough, life is already so tough that if you go somewhere by thinking don't fuck this up, don't fuck this up, you might actually rob yourself from the benefits of doing something. Because most people when you are like a daredevil, you're like don't fuck this up, which means you're already doing it. But.
Lauren Alvarez (1:18:43)
Yeah.
Massaër Ndiaye (1:18:50)
A lot of people by wanting to not fuck shit up will decide with the conservative approach and not do something. Whereas like as I was saying earlier, jump, you might swim. And if it's career and like moves, it's just at the end of the day, it's just, you know, you try something, you fail, and then you learn from it and you'll grow. So yeah, fuck this up. Absolutely. I think that that's that will be my final thought.
Lauren Alvarez (1:19:02)
Yeah.
I love that. Do fuck this up. Yeah, please.
Massaër Ndiaye (1:19:19)
Do fuck this up, please. Yeah, try it. Try it. And then, you know, and then ask for forgiveness later.
Lauren Alvarez (1:19:25)
I love that so much. Masair, thank you for joining me today. This has been another episode of Don't Fuck This Up, the podcast answering the ultimate question, how the fuck did you land that cool job? I'm your host, Lauren Alvarez, and we'll talk to you next week.
Massaër Ndiaye (1:19:29)
Thanks for having me.