Nic Masangkay is a poet, musician, and peer support specialist.
As an art activist, musician, producer, poet, peer support specialist, and cultural worker in Seattle, Nic Masangkay occupies many roles — and they all flow from the same source: a desire to help heal trauma.
“I spent my late childhood and early adulthood experiencing and exploring the negative, harsh side of trauma as a Filipino American, sick and disabled, queer and trans survivor,” Nic said. “My work now in the arts and in the behavioral health field has matured with me.”
“I now focus on actualizing self-empowerment and facilitating healing from personal, intergenerational, and historical trauma. I think it’s important that we both hold our pain and also grow from it, so that we can cause less violence and harm in the world.”
As a closeted pre-teen in the mid-2000s, Nic found themselves crooning along to R&B, pop, and punk, anything that resonated and made space for them to embody their truth, while also keeping a secret diary of prose and poetry entries on their family’s computer.
“For years, that diary was basically my closet, where I could be my full queer and trans self without anybody judging me. One day, it got deleted permanently. That broke me and months later I started coming out to people my senior year in high school,” Nic said.
Years later, Nic found a home for their own self-expression at poetry slams, both in the Pacific Northwest and across the country. Their nationally recognized poem “My Gender Is for Mothers” is a raw and tender work addressing the complexities of gender identity, colonialism, and diaspora experienced both intergenerationally and interpersonally.
Nic took these themes of intergenerational trauma and their experiences with disability, substance use, and mental health recovery to other mediums with EPs A Hundred Suns Setting in 2017, and Dark at Dusk: The Final Suicide in 2019, plus singles and music videos “Forever (featuring Falon Sierra)” (2019) and “Star” (2021). Nic’s electronic-alt-pop carves out a space for their honest and authentic wrestling with trauma, love, and heartbreak over lush synths. The Seattle Times described it as “synth-pop with overlaid vocals in the style of Reggie Watts.”
Other work led Nic to facilitating artist workshops; performing at universities and on stages like Seattle Trans Pride, and Refuge Outdoor Festival, keynote speaking opportunities, and fruitful collaborations with local queer and trans artists and musicians. Nic leads the Recovery Writing Circle at one of Plymouth Housing’s facilities, where they work as a Peer Support Specialist.
Nic’s forthcoming EP, When the World Is Ending, I Listen, brings their meditations on trauma, survivorship, love, and healing to new, transformative dimensions. As a Millennial inspired by speculative fiction and coming-of-age genres, “I kept asking myself, ‘How will you love when the world is ending?’ A few months later, the unprecedented Covid-19 pandemic began, so my fictionalizing suddenly became very real.”
“It feels great releasing the EP now because I’ve found, for myself, the answers to my original question. My findings, expressed through my new music, are meant to help realize a better world.”
When the World Is Ending, I Listen debuts in October 2026.
Follow Nic on Instagram, BandCamp, and their official website.
Contact them at ngmasang@gmail.com
