The Intersection Podcast is a homegrown project started by Georgia State’s Lakeyta Bonnette-Bailey, Associate Professor, Pre-Ph.D. Faculty Associate, Center for the Advancement of Students and Alumni (CASA), African-American Studies.
Ever since hosting a conference February 2020 titled “Beyond the Culture, Black Popular Culture and Social Justice” Dr. Dr. Bonnette-Bailey realized she had always wanted to start a podcast.
The podcast examines and discusses at the ways Black popular culture is used to resist dominant ideologies and oppressive situations.
Dr. Bonnette-Bailey met Lisa Ferrell, Project Manager at GSU’s Creative Media Industries Institute (CMII) while organizing her conference and approached Ferrell with her idea.
Ferrell stated, “she (Bonnette-Bailey) called me up and said, “what do you think about doing a podcast? I responded, “that sounds great, we’ll learn together,” so we started doing the pre-production early, on just the two of us, just fleshing it out.”
From there, Dr. Bonnette-Bailey and Ferrell reached out to Booker Edwards, CMII Professor of Practice in the Music Industries to assist with the audio production aspect of the podcast.
“When Dr. Dr. Bonnette-Bailey came to me with the idea, telling me that her and Lakeyta had discussed this podcast, I thought it was intriguing, I immediately jumped on board,” Edwards said.
“They won’t tell you this, but I just came on board as the technical guy,” he said with a laugh. “They kind of twisted my arm and convinced me to be one of the participating hosts and I’m glad I did.”
The podcast covers a wide range of topics with the previous episodes addressing COVID-19, athletes, anime, and music. The Intersection have also had celebrity guest stars such as musical legend Seal, Georgia State Lecturer Dr. Lisa Shannon from African-American Studies, and others.
“They are the most awesome co-hosts, I have a great team and they balance me in many ways,” Dr. Dr. Bonnette-Bailey said. “I am very proud of the podcast and it would not be what it is without them.”
All three co-hosts of The Intersection Podcasts said the podcast has grown during its production and each episode released is better than that last.
“I really think it’s our best so far,” Edwards said, regarding their latest episode starring Seal titled Black Music and Social Justice. “We say that after each episode” he continued, “we are getting better and better.”
These co-hosts are also involving students in the podcast, giving them a chance to learn hands-on.
“We didn’t have any funding to start the podcast and we able to utilize CMII’s new podcast studio,” Dr. Dr. Bonnette-Bailey said. “Lisa created the internship opportunity within CMII and the students are involved from start to finish.”
Within the actual podcast itself is a second podcast nested within the original podcast where certain episodes are completely produced by the students, and run completely by the students. With the interns securing their own guests such as Mark McCray from Cartoon Network.
The Intersection Podcast has only begun to scratch the surface in regards to all the topics they want to delve into and are excited to involve students to grow and learn with them along the way.
“I really want to emphasize this is a Georgia State University project, not only is it by some of the leaders in the industry with myself, Booker Edwards, and Lisa Ferrell in these various industries, but we involve students,” Dr. Dr. Bonnette-Bailey said. “We are continuing the tradition in the history of Georgia State of continuing to educate our students, teach our students and provide them with experiences that will help them transition to careers, once they leave.”