Meet Sidney Yaphit | Entrepeneur & Artist of Many mediums ( Lgbt Artivist)

We had the good fortune of connecting with Sidney Yaphit and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Sidney, why did you pursue a creative career?
After living with my aunt,and being faced with a reality in which the only things you did were watch the hours go by, working for someone elses business, and go home to spend what little time you had outside of work were spent sleeping and/or preparing for to return to work, just to do that over, and over again. I always knew that i loved doing so many things, at least as a child, before so many people had beaten grind culture as the only way to succeed, into my head.

In 2020, i finally decided to step away from that lifestyle, despite how it made me look to certain family members. i decided that id have to ask for forgiveness, instead of permission to quit my job, and allow myself the space to figure out what it was i wanted to do, let alone how to go about it.

It took a while until i were able to allow myself to feel like i weren’t betraying my family, and the lifestyle that they’d chosen. It felt like, “Who am i to demand a different, easier lifestyle, since they’d dedicated their lives to grind, work go home, repeat? Who was i to deviate from that. Who was i to decide that i was better than this, and deserved more?”

Then in 2020, the pandemic hit, and when i tell you that i was literally forced to become crafty, and to do what id been struggling internally to feel ok with doing, i mean it. Before then, i dont think with everything that had been beaten into my head about how a man is supposed to provide and make a living,that id have ever felt comfortable deviating from the norm, and allowing myself to learn to make money painting, or performing, or doing any of the things that i taught myself, and thoroughly enjoy doing.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
As of current, I’ve just recently released my first novel, and even saying those words are extremely surreal. My inner child is going absolutely nuts right now! But anyway, the fictional, initial entry to my series, “Fear Homewood..” is based in the hood where i come from, and largely depicts the perspective of a brown kid in america, ruled by a race that is the only race concerned with race, and placing themselves right on top. unfortunately farmiliar. Which brings me to the kind of artist that i identify as.

I am an lgbt, bipoc artist, and i do my best to utilize my platforms, in any regard, to shed light on the issues that i am passionate about. Living as a bipoc Lgbt artist, in a straight presenting relationship obviously has his draw backs. But after deciding the kind of life i want, and the sort of life I’m even willing to settle for, you figure out once you make a song about your own expiriences, and someone you don’t even know wholeheardlty connects with your words, or art, or show, that you have power that you literally decide whether or not is there, and what to do with.

I hope to use mine to inspire, and showcase a lifestyle that is largely misunderstood, misrepresented, and misused where I’m from.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Id like to shout out my Fiance, business partner, life partner, Music partner and safe space, Na’Chelle Simone. Together, we write, and perform under the combined duo known as Simone Yaphit. Without us having each other, and in large parts, without our child, Rythm, being born, we agree that we probrably wouldn’t have had to stand on the lifestyle that we both seen for ourselves, until we had too.

Id also like to shout out The lighthouse project of the YMCA of Homewood, pa, which is where we met, and cultivated our initial friendship. We also made most of our first songs there, and experienced a lot of most largely influential experiences for where we are now.

And lastly, id like to shout out Netflix’s new series, Heartstopper, for providing, after years of looking and hoping, the proper sort of Bisexual representation, and lgbt representation that is important in the mental development of the beings that exist and deserved to be aknowledged.

Website: linktr.ee/yaphitism

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iyaphitdesidney/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/myogi.salitio

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHiTpmnDJNc

Image Credits
Photos of Sidney Yaphit taken by Nachelle Simone.