Ayo Oti and Sounds Like Impact

Ayo: I just have found that there's always this idea of what we think we want and then sometimes we do those things and we're like, actually, that's maybe not what I want. And one of the things that I was thinking about was it's really frustrating to convince people to care. I'm doing all of these things, it's crazy that Communities still don't have clean water access, that governments aren't providing the resources for the most basic of needs. how do we change this? And so that started me thinking back again about media. and impact.

I knew that storytelling was one of those ways.

June: Welcome to Story for Good, the podcast where entertainment meets impact.

June Intro: I'm your host, June Neely. Today's guest is Ayo Oti. Ayo is the founder of Unofficial Social Chair, which runs the newsletter Sounds Like Impact. The newsletter is a hub for finding podcasts focused on impact and calls to action you can participate in. We also talk about her previous work at Spotify and how podcasts can take a more active role in creating impact. I can't wait for you to hear this conversation, so let's get into it.

June: Welcome to the show.

Ayo: Hi, June. I'm happy to be here.

June: So how did you get your start in your career and what brought you to Social Impact?

Ayo: it's a winding journey, but it goes back to undergrad. When I was applying to, to go to school, there were a couple of things I knew. I knew that I wanted to be in school in New York and I'm originally from Florida. and I also knew that I wanted to study journalism. Or so I thought, right?

I think sometimes when we, get to college and we start getting exposed to different things, we're like, okay, maybe we're gonna go a different path. and so before, I wanted to host, a travel show, do travel journalism, and I had this internship, my freshman year, spring semester that was at this non profit called Charity Water. And their focus was providing clean water access to people in developing countries, mostly in Sub Saharan Africa and South Asia. And that really changed a lot of things for me. I prior to that had an interest in environmental issues, but didn't think I would take it beyond, just having that interest.

But when I learned that people were dying because they didn't have access to clean water, and all of the different impacts from that, I actually pivoted to studying environmental public health. so the rest of my college career was spent really understanding that human environment interaction and how it impacted, health and therefore economic development. And so when I graduated, I was like, cool, I'm gonna go get a job. Working for an NGO abroad, I'm gonna like work on public health issues, and it was just really hard to get those jobs, and so I ended up taking a fellowship at the mayor's office in New York and was running an AmeriCorps program and I was like, Oh, this is like cool.

And, it was my first year in the city is not a student. So I was like, this is great. I love this. but I was still Public health, environmental public health. that's what you said you're going to do. And so I applied to another fellowship that, took me to Peru, to work at an organization called Sacred Valley Health, that provided, training to women in the Andes. to learn how to be community health promoters. so provide basic first aid and education about, health. And I was the monitoring and evaluation coordinator there. But after that experience, I was like, is this what I want to do? And but I just have found that there's always this This idea of what we think we want and then sometimes we actually do those things and we're like, actually, that's maybe not what I want. And one of the things that spoke to me, or that I was thinking about was like, it's really frustrating to convince people to care. I'm doing all of these things, it's crazy that Communities still don't have clean water access, that governments aren't providing the resources for the most basic of needs. I was like, how do we change this? And so that started me thinking back again about media. and impact. And so I will fast forward through, the jobs that I just took to, make it through. there were a lot of, of course, learnings and ways that I was able to develop. but I decided ultimately in, 2019, I went back to school, to get an MBA. Surprising, not a journalism degree, but I was afraid, a little bit risk averse of getting a degree where, if it didn't work out, then how would I be able to pivot? Whereas I saw with business, at least that there was some flexibility in the types of organizations you can work at and the roles that you can work in, but I knew that I wanted to pivot to media.

And so my plan was actually to go into documentary, because back to that idea of like, how do we get people to care? I knew that storytelling was one of those ways. but then the pandemic hit and I was like, How do I break into this industry now when everything's pretty much shut down, but at the same time, podcasting was booming and that, provided an opportunity that I didn't think I was going to pursue.

I was an avid podcast listener, but I did not at all think that I was going to work in podcasting, but I applied for an internship. with How to Save a Planet. So again, back to those environmental themes. I got the internship, I think, in part because I, had some subject matter knowledge about environmental issues.

And that kind of set me on this trajectory to where, After my internship ended, I was hired at Spotify as a full time employee, to work on their podcast editorial team and focus on social impact podcasting because they did a lot of work, with the corporate social responsibility team on different campaigns for Earth Day and International Women's Day and elections.

And so they wanted somebody to be full time on the team that was thinking about. that lens of podcasting. And so I did that, but I was impacted by layoffs at the end of. January of last year, but by that point there had already been some changes on the team where I wasn't just entirely focused on social impact anymore, and so when I got laid off I was like, I still feel like this work is important and that's what led me to start my newsletter Sounds Like Impact where I could continue and do a little bit more. around connecting people to these podcasts about social issues with tangible actions that they could take.

June: it was great to hear how your past changed over time. Cause I feel like that is a thing that we go through. I definitely went to college and I was like, yeah, I'm going to be, I'm going to do whatever this is in the film industry. And then I got there and I was like, oh no,not what I want to do.

And then the same thing with your change in the pandemic and having to shift, I feel like a lot of things had to shift for a lot of people during that time. I, I was on set for 12 hours a day and then suddenly I had nothing to do. And then when I went back to set, I said, Oh, maybe this isn't what I want to do anymore either.

So always great to hear how your path, moves and changes because this isn't like a It's not a static or you can only do this one thing. it evolves over time

Ayo: Definitely. Yeah.

June: What were some of the impact work because you mentioned a little bit of it that you did at Spotify

Could you talk a little bit about that?

Ayo: Part of the strategy we had was like rolling out these different hubs on the Spotify platform. I'm not sure how many people have actually poked around the Spotify app and seen these category tiles. You mostly see them for music, right?

Like it'll be like R& B or like hip hop or like pop or country. but we also have them for podcasts as well. And on, like, when you go in the podcast tabs, there are these different tiles. They're mostly organized by genre, right? true crime, or history, or science. but, at one point, we had a strategy. To create communities, and I give all credit to Carmen Dukes, who used to be the head of editorial, podcast editorial at Spotify for thinking about, like, how can we take a bit of a Netflix approach, to communities? like, how they have strong black lead, and all of their different properties. So we had somebody who was like doing true crime. We had somebody who was doing like sports. we had someone who was like focused on black communities, someone else on Latinx communities and culture. I also thought about like spinning out different hubs that we could do.

So a hub focus on. Climate action, which actually preceded me a little bit, but I expanded and involved it a bit. one of the ones that I did was like actually a collaboration with the sports editor, that we called the fearless. And so it was looking at the intersection of social justice and sports movements.

and so one of the cool things that I got to do was like, think of who can I partner with to make these hubs come alive? When we were launching the Fearless, I had been talking to someone at Picture Motion, which is, an impact. production company, they do lots of campaigns for, documentary films and probably some fictional works as well. and they were working on the documentary LFG, which was about the U. S. women's national team's fight for pay equity. And it also turns out that one of the players, Was also going to be the focus of a podcast. So because I had created a relationship with them where I was like, Hey, so what are some things that you guys are working on?

Let's see if maybe we can collaborate in some way. They connected me to, Jessica McDonald people, and I got a guest curation from her. she curated about women's pay equity. we got to feature the podcast that she was, the subject of, and we got a write up in the Spotify, newsletter or blog for the record. And so that was a really cool thing to tie the documentary world, the visual documentary world, with podcasting and create those connections, and then actually getting to work with them again, They had the color of care as one of the documentaries that they were focused on And they were like, what's a way we can get the word out about this the bakari sellers podcast was part of spotify's ecosystem And so I had reached out to their producers and I was like, hey There's this documentary coming out.

I think given you know, the content that bakari sellers Focuses on that, someone from this film would be, good to talk to you. And so we actually made that happen where, I believe it was the director. got to go on the show and get interviewed about, the documentary that was coming out. So that's just like a couple of the things. And then for elections. Of course, nonpartisan focus. It was really just about getting people to turn out to vote and to register to vote. So there are actually these links that we were able to embed in the hubs that we created. and people could, be scrolling on their phone and, see this tile that's, are you registered to vote?

If not,click here and you can go register. You can check your status and it would take them outside of the app, to one of our partner websites where they could, look up the information. So that's also a bit, too, of, driving the impact pieces. Yes, we're presenting you with like podcasts around the importance of like voting and like different issues, but also we're like Making it easy for you to then take action and register to vote. and the same thing happened with climate action. We had partnered with the U. N. At one point, and they had a page of like actions people could take to be more sustainable. and so that was a link that they could access after listening to podcasts or the playlists that we put together. so yeah, there were a lot of really unique things that I got to do like that.

guest curations were certainly some of the funnest things, like getting different folks, to, focus on different issues and present that information. but also then some of those impactful moments where we provided resources that people could take advantage of.

June: Yeah, It's really cool hearing all the different collaborations and how you're able to, because I actually talked with, Brian Walker, who's, the current CEO of Picture Motion.

 I love that little tie in. but it's really cool how you were able to partner with the UN and all these different organizations to create these activations around, the podcast and through Spotify.

Did some of your work there lead into your current work now with Sounds Like Impact

Ayo: One of the things that we started to see overall, in the podcast industry. Yes, there was like this. I don't want to say course correcting, but like we had been hearing for the past couple of years. couple of years of all of these big deals with like celebrities and like public figures getting podcasting deals and all of that and like this real focus on like talk shows, chat show formats.and then also like true crime being like really big focus. And so in all of that noise about these, these types of content that people were prioritizing, I felt like documentary style podcasts, were like getting forgotten about, right? There would be a couple of standouts,I think of Stolen, by Connie Walker, which focused mostly on, in the first season, where they got a lot of awards, a missing and murdered indigenous woman. and, there would be a couple of those. But, for the most part, people weren't, searching up for, Specific documentary podcast.

They were like, okay What's this like armchair expert or, like different shows like that, but that's what they were looking for. and so I was like, having worked with a lot of different folks who were podcast producers that were like putting out Really amazing content and then getting their shows canceled because of this like shift in investment priorities I was like, I feel a responsibility to Amplify the work that has been done and continued to amplify the work that's being done in this space So sounds like impact really was Yes, drawing on a bit of what I was initially hired to do at Spotify, which is like focus on these kind of social issue podcasts. but really keep the momentum going, and providing more opportunities for people involved in the work to speak about the work. So that's why interviews, have always been a part of the newsletter. so yeah. I'm really fortunate a lot of times that there's this, interest.

there are people, especially in the beginning that I cold emailed and I was like, Hey, like I heard about your show and I really think it would be great if like you would do an interview about it. And they would say, yes, like I haven't really gotten into a situation where someone's been like, no.

And I think, again, going back to what I was saying. Part of that is because there hasn't been this like interest and focus on these shows, right? It's mostly what like celebrity show is happening or like what true crime podcast is big at the moment. so giving that platform for people to talk about their work has been really important. guest curations, again, something that I was doing at Spotify, but also something that's, At least in the podcast newsletter space is really pioneered or driven by like air buds podcast collective, which is run by RL Nissenblatt, who is a great person in this industry and like really big on podcast marketing and like getting the word out about all types of shows.

And so she had a newsletter where people would come in and curate on a topic and I was like great we'll continue to do that, too and then in the beginning I was spending a lot of time also Curating my own collections, which again is what I used to do at spotify but In april we hit one year I eventually, because I could not find other work in podcasting, after I finished up my contract on the environmental defense fund podcast Degrees, I was like, all right, we got to get a regular job again. So I still, so I got, a nine to five, but I still wanted to keep doing the newsletter, but I also was like, I need to find a balance. And so that's one of the things I would say is different about. What I've been doing since the one year anniversary in April is letting people guest curate more and limiting the number of newsletters to around two a month because I was doing weekly basically for a year. and so it was just like, a lot of work, but one of the things that I do want to bring back because the guest curators don't always do this is providing calls to action. And even though it's something that not everyone always clicks on, right? Like the different ways, I still feel like it's important to connect some information because I guess, and this comes from like the impact producing piece, that is really big in the documentary film world as you've covered, on your podcast is that like people are going to hear depressing things or difficult things and they're like, okay, so what can I do about it? Like I listened to this story about, black girls that have been murdered and it's cold cases, there's not been investment. like Jamie Albright focused on with Freeway Phantom, she was the producer on that show. Alright, there's the Black and Missing Foundation. Maybe people don't know about that.

Let's make sure that we have links to that information. so that people can see that, okay, there are people working on this issue.can you amplify their work? Can you support their work in some way? And so that's what I want to get back to and I will probably, just after a guest curation, see what they have and then go in and maybe pull some of my own calls to actions.

But I think that's also an important piece to continue with the newsletter.

June: When it comes to I guess creating the newsletter, initially you had a bunch of different themes, like your first edition, you talked about, weight stigmas, which I feel like is almost timely again. Cause I feel like Ozempic is made its way back into the media. was there a particular reason why you chose that subject to start off with?

 How do you choose, the topics for each one?

Ayo: Yeah, so when I was doing some of the curations myself, I would also look at what's happening, in, in the world. and so at that time there were so many conversations about Ozempic, like it was like the beginning waves because now I feel like we're in like the second wave of Ozempic conversations.And it's just like one of those things like I had known about this show Maintenance Phase from my days at Spotify and I was like, oh, okay, yeah, that's a show that probably has covered this or touching on it. and it is a social issue, right? I think that's maybe surprising to some people that a social impact newsletter would have a, a curation on weight stigma. but it actually has tangible impacts on people's lives, right? there's the mental health piece of it, of course, but then there like real economic impacts, there's been research to show that people who are larger or considered fat, how they're stigmatized and may not, get more money when they like try to go for promotions or try to negotiate job offers and all of this stuff. are real impacts to the way that, people navigate the world. there's also what happens when doctors do not police themselves in the way that they're dealing with patients who are considered obese, right?

And how they ignore them like that has real impacts on people's health then, right? if your doctor is not listening to you. so there's also a bit of. Wanting to make sure that people see the tie in to how an issue that you might not think is a social impact issue is actually a social impact issue. and so in the curation process, it's looking as well for those things that are not as widely talked about, right? climate and environmental issues are important to me and will continue to be something that I want to focus on. But one of the recent podcasts guest curations we did was on missing and murdered indigenous women. And that day, there's like actually a day for that, and it's in May. A lot of people probably don't know that day exists, right? And so there's also thinking of the timeliness of some of the issues. Like there are some lesser known, not holidays, but commemorative days, that focus on issues that they're probably podcasts that you can listen to that would bring you up to speed.

Alexandra Cole did for World Homelessness Day. day, which is maybe a day that people didn't realize exists as well. so yeah, to shortly answer your question, part of it is like looking at what conversations are happening in the world, but also trying to think about what issues aren't always highlighted, and what might not appear to have a clear connection to social justice, as an issue.

Ayo: You're listening to Story for Good. If you like the show, please follow and subscribe to keep updated when new episodes drop. And if you're looking for more social impact goodness, but in your inbox, sign up for our newsletter at storyforgoodpod.com./

June: Just bringing it to the Hollywood side of things because I know a lot of times with Hollywood films either in documentary or fiction we have social impact campaigns that coincide with our storytelling because you mentioned Picture Motion and that's some of the work that they do when it comes to the podcasting world, it's not the same It's not as prevalent to create these kind of campaigns I guess, what kind of shift do you think would it take for there to be more of a focus on social impact campaigns created for these type of stories?

Ayo: so backing up a little bit after I was let go, The plan wasn't just to do a newsletter, right? the newsletter for me was like a means of, creating a platform. Yes. But also for what I wanted to be was, doing social impact campaigns for podcasts. Like I wanted to help, podcasters build actual campaigns around their shows.

But what I was finding as I was like talking to more people to see about how like viable something like this would be ismoney. A lot of these shows simply did not have money for marketing. and even for, how to save a planet, the show that I worked on that was at Spotify, right? We were the ones who did the social media. Producers. We did the social media. We did the newsletter that we created, which always included calls to action. we found the time to make it work because we knew that moving people to action was core to what we were trying to accomplish with the show. Not all producers. Are going to be able to do that, right? not all of them are going to be able to create a supplementary newsletter or manage a social media account. And so really like the feedback that I was getting is that'd be great. But we don't have a marketing budget. So really comes down to money and what the priorities are. And so I think you need to be with a mission oriented company for that to even be like a non starter that you wouldn't have some kind of impact piece to your work. And so I think great models. of organizations, or podcast companies rather, that do embed impact into a lot of the work that they do are Lemonada Media.they partnered with Only One for one of their podcasts, which Only One is like a campaigns platform for issues related to ocean and climate, conservation, or, ocean conservation and climate action in some ways. and they partnered with them to put some additional resources out there, create some campaigns, petitions that people can sign. And that went along with the podcast that Lemonata released. I will say Lemonata gets It's a lot of their funding from foundations, right? And foundations typically want to fund impactful work. And I know that's often the case as well in the documentary film world, that it's usually a foundation grant that is like helping a lot of, the impact piece to, to be attached to a film. the same thing with LWC studios. They created so many resources for some of their podcasts, including 70 million, which is about mass incarceration. another campaign that they did focus on school lunches. They had a bunch of resources and explainers and materials like that. SoI think you just have to have it as if you're going to do this podcast. That's on the social issue you would want to make it part of the mission and the impact and you know say to those who are funding it like We have to at least do something like we at least have to have a website That, can, even if it's one page, that can point people to some resources or that, has all of the show notes.

Show notes, I think, is like a, is a bit of a low lift way. Low lift because it, it does still take work to put together show notes. But, It's not you having to, do, an Instagram post or a Facebook post or, create some extra thing, you were probably going to do show notes anyway, especially if you had to cite a lot of information in your podcast episode. So at the very least,you can be encouraging people to, hey, check out our show notes, To hear more from that expert that we featured or that organization that we mentioned that is working on this issue,point people in a direction. and I know that's easier said than done when like money is a lot of the motivator for us to make things happen.

But I think there needs to be like a recognition of responsibility that if we're going to be doing,Some of this content that has real impact on people's lives, that we are giving the audience additional things that they can do to support the cause. And, not just listen to somebody's trauma as like entertainment, but actually become educated and then do something about it with the resources that were provided.

June: Yeah, agreed. I read a previous interview that you did, where you mentioned true crime and how it's a popular genre, but it can do both good and harm, especially if, there's nothing attached to it, because, people need to know what can they do. In, another podcast episode, I talked with, Robert Rittberger about the Power of Storytelling and why the way that we tell stories matter and true crime is very much in line with that because it's, sometimes it could be trauma porn, which, why are we trying to tell these stories?

Why do you think it's important in, audio storytelling to recognize, in the same instance, just like in film and TV that, the type of stories that we tell and how we tell them matter?

Ayo: Yeah. I think at the end of the day, like there are real people who are associated with these stories, right? Like stories don't just happen in a vacuum. I would say even a lot of fiction, right? is drawn from real life things that have happened or experiences, right?

Like you can often talk to writers and be like, Oh, what was the inspiration for this story? And they'll tell you about some news You know, clipping that they read or like some movie or, interview that they watch. and so there are always people that are attached to a story.

And so I think there is a real duty of care. Now, I think first and foremost, like to the truth, right? Like you want to make sure that you're telling this story in an accurate way.but that also you're telling this story in a way that doesn't unnecessarily re traumatize people or traumatize people, right?

The listener might listen to it and be like, whoa, this is intense, right? And might be bringing up some things for them. so I just think it's, I just think it's the right thing to do, right? I think there's a bit of, a moral imperative not to exploit other people's pain for profit. Now, some might argue that, podcasts, not all podcasts, make a bunch of money. And, sometimes it's just, for the journalists. I think a lot of journalists do tell stories because they think they're important, they think matter, that they want to get the truth out there. but even if you're like going for a Pulitzer or like some type of big reward, or recognition, like there's still some gain tied to it.

And so I personally wouldn't want to be trading on somebody's story. For recognition or profit if I didn't do my best to make sure that I told the story in the most accurate way in a way that was respectful to those involved, I think of, again, my interview with Jamie Albright who did Freeway Phantom,These are families that are still living, even though their daughters disappeared some years ago, That these families still exist, and so there's a real responsibility that you have as an interviewer. to make sure that you're respectful in your interactions with them. and one of the things, she said was, if someone was like, I don't want to answer that question or don't put that in there, She actually listens to them, like, yes, they're opening up to you because in a way, this might've been therapeutic. They hadn't talked about it for a long time to try to get these things out there, but that doesn't mean that they want that clip aired for everyone else to hear.

And so being respectful to that, and then also, they're making this story. They decided to put money behind increasing the reward. for information about these disappearances, that's what the production companies decided was the right thing to do if they were going to be telling these stories. and so I think at the, not everybody's going to be able to do that for a true crime, offer,increase funding for, rewards for information, but the very least you can do is listen to the people who've been victimized.

June: Yeah. it's amazing that they put something behind it because I do feel like a lot of times, true crime is just, it's there for entertainment. versus, what is the purpose behind it? Why are we telling this story?

Ayo: Yeah. if you want to do that, go watch Criminal Minds. You know what I mean? even though I'm sure a lot of those stories were like, based on bits and pieces of real stories.

But if it's just fascinating to you to hear about people who were murdered or harmed in some way, and not think about what are the ways that we can help prevent these things, or do something to make right. you can't really make things right, but, take efforts,

 maybe now you listen to Freeway Phantom and they're talking about how, black women and girls they're not like posters that are actively, promoted to say, Hey, like this person is missing. Have you seen them? That when you see something on Instagram or Facebook of somebody sharing like, Hey, like my, uncle is missing or my sister's missing.

this is where they were last seen. Okay, you can share that, Because now you have been educated, presumably, if you listen to that podcast. That these stories don't often make it to the news, to increase everyone's awareness about what's happening to these communities that are often overlooked when these things happen. and yeah, I think if you're going to listen to something, hopefully the producers and the hosts have in mind how we can change people. in some way. And so if that's the win you can get is that encourage people to share information about missing folks that they stumble upon.

Great. That's a win. That's impact.

June: Yeah, I think that's important to note that, call to action doesn't mean, oh, this person's missing. I'm gonna go out and find them myself. it just means, doing what you can, the small part you can, which you mentioned, just The notice, if somebody's missing, sharing it to your page to help bring awareness to it.

Ayo: Right.

June: You talked a little bit about how, Sounds Like Impact has evolved a little bit, but, what are you, looking forward to in the future. do you have any projects or anything coming down the pipeline? Like, how are you hoping to see it grow?

Ayo: So one of the things that I would like to do, and I've mentioned on the newsletter a couple of times is do a series on a particular topic. one particular topic I'm interested in is the idea of climate reparations. so money that we give to those who are most impacted by climate change. our continued burning of fossil fuels that are fueling, climate change. And so often that looks like,some of these small island nations, right? And who came together, to the UN climate talks and they're like, Hey, we're not the ones burning fossil fuels all the time. We, some of us barely have, cars, right?

Like, where we have, we're not the ones fueling this, and yet sea level rise is really going to impact us. Or, if we're thinking about, in the U. S., environmental justice issues, where we cite chemical plants and coal plants are often in poor communities, are often in black and brown communities,

And so what it then looks like to be like, sorry, like we've caused you harm, we're going to make this right with some type of reparations. And so what are the models for that? What is, the movement behind making that happen, looking at past instances of reparations, not necessarily climate reparations, but reparations in general that have been given and I think part of it is just building up a moral imperative to,act and think about these things and,then become advocates for it.

Because I think a lot of us tend to be like,we're not the ones who made the decision. Or, these decisions were made, decades ago, like, why should I be responsible? Why should, my taxes today go to, fund some Island nation that I've might not have even heard of before.

there's a very kind of I didn't do this, so this is not my responsibility that I think at least, and I can only speak for being a person who's based in the US right. And reads like media in the US that that is a lot of the ethos or. thinking that we have around a lot of issues. And so I would really like to spend some time thinking about, that issue and how we can use different forms of media. so not just podcasts, there are podcasts that have, talked about climate reparations and other types of reparations, but also documentary what does a curriculum look like basically to educate people around this idea for climate reparation?

So that's something that I would love to do, but it's one of those things where it's you have to spend time. Time is unfortunately in our capitalist world, also money. sometimes I come home from work and I'm exhausted and then it's I got to feed myself. Like I got to. do all of these other things and so it would be nice to be able to be able to pay people to like work with me on getting it out there.

So that's what I'm hoping happens at some point. this year perhaps is that I can, take some time and some resources behind creating, like a mini newsletter curriculum, to help people get educated.

June: It sounds super interesting. So I hope you're able to do it cause I'm looking forward to it.

Ayo: Thank you.

June: So with, every interview I do, I always do the same five rapid fire questions. the first one is name one TV show, film, or podcast that has had a profound effect on you and why.

Ayo: Oh my god, this is so hard because I watch So much TV and film. I cannot. I cannot. You know what? I'm gonna go ahead and say Tanya Mosley show, truth be told. the second season, I think it was the second season or the season before this one that came out, which is actually true crime ask. It's about the disappearance of her sister. So it's a deeply personal story that she's revealing to the public. but the season before was looking at how like psychedelics could help heal racial trauma. And so she goes on this journey to understand. She, I think it goes to a psilocybin retreat, like mushrooms retreat. And so as someone who's wait, you want me to do what?I think it just made me think about things in a different way and made me potentially open to the possibility of doing that. so yeah, I would say truth be told. Yeah.

June: What an interesting cross of subjects, because I wouldn't think that either.

Ayo: Yeah. I definitely recommend everyone to listen to it because it was really fascinating.

June: So the second question is, what is the cause closest to your heart?

Ayo: I would say environmental justice. that's what even drew me to journalism in the first place is environmental issues and how they affect like marginalized communities. And still something that I think a lot about. today and want to help change.

June: And the third question, name one nonprofit you would love to lift up right now.

Ayo: going to cheat and I'm telling you I'm cheating because it's an organization that I'm affiliated with. So I'm on the board of the New York City Arts and Education Round Table and we support arts education in New York city schools by supporting Administrators and teaching artists and doing policy advocacy work. art education is not just for fun and playtime, it has real tangible impacts on the trajectory of children's lives, helping with socio, emotional development. there's so many benefits. to arts education on the person, but also there's a huge economic impact. Like we are talking about entertainment right now, right?

Like film, TV, music, like a lot of those people that do that professionally got their start because of exposure to arts education. so that's really important to me. It is New York City centric. So I would say Americans for the Arts, if you're outside of New York City and you want to support arts education, in the U S then that's a good organization too.

June: And then number four, if you could collaborate with anyone, who would it be?

Ayo: It would be Tanya Mosley.like she's big time. She's like the co host of Fresh Air with Terry Gross now. So I feel like. She's a lot harder probably to get to, but I would love to interview her for the newsletter and see how I could uplift more of her work because I just think she talks about things and thinks about things with such care. and yeah, She's great.

June: And then the last question, is always silly, if you could choose one song to play every time you walked into a room, what would it be and why?

Ayo: Oh man. That is a really hard question. I probably should have prepared this answer before this interview because oh that's so hard. Because I'm just like, there are different, I'm trying to separate songs that are like songs that I really love and have an impact on me. But it's not a song you would like rock into the room listening. You know what I mean?

June: What's one of the songs that has impact on you?

Ayo: I love Corinne Bailey Ray. I've seen her in concert like four times, but one of her songs, Like a Star, it's very beautiful, but it's a song that like, make me cry on command. Like I don't want to walk in, I don't want to walk into a room like crying. That is crazy. That would be crazy. yeah, no, like that's not the song I'm walking into.can I just do an artist?

June: Sure.

Someone picked Beyonce, I think, at one point. They were just like, anything Beyonce.

Ayo: Okay. I would say Diana Ross. I was and I love the roots too. I've seen them actually more than I've seen Corinne Bailey Ray in concert.

You Got Me is like one of my all time favorite Roots song, but I don't feel like it's a walk on song. Anyways,

June: So thank you everyone for listening. And thank you Ayo for coming on the show.

Ayo: Thank you for having me. This was really fun.

June Outro: Thank you for joining me today on this episode. Story for Good is created, hosted, and produced by June Neely. For more information about the organizations or projects talked about in the show, or for media and sponsorship inquiries, visit us at storyforgoodpod.com. If you enjoyed this episode, please and subscribe to the show, and be sure to share it with a friend.