Dr. Lakeyta Bonnette-Bailey is an Associate Professor of Africana Studies at Georgia State University and the Interim Co-Director for the Center for the Advancement of Students and Alumni (CASA). Her research interests include Hip Hop culture, popular culture, political behavior, political attitudes, African-American politics, Black women and Politics, political psychology and public opinion.
Her current research examines the relationship between Black popular culture and social justice in a forthcoming co-edited volume (with Jonathan Gayles) entitled Black Popular Culture and Social Justice: Beyond the Culture (Routledge Press). Additionally, Dr. Bonnette-Bailey’s is also examining the relationship between political rap music and racial attitudes in a book tentatively titled, What’s on Your Radio: Political Rap Music and Racial Attitudes.
She recently published a co-edited volume (with Adolphus Belk Jr) entitled For the Culture: Hip-Hop and Social Justice (University of Michigan Press, 2022) examining the relationships between Hip-Hop culture and social justice. Additionally, Dr. Bonnette-Bailey published (2015) a book with the University of Pennsylvania Press entitled, Pulse of the People: Rap Music and Black Political Attitudes.
Dr. Bonnette-Bailey has written numerous articles including articles published in Ethnic Studies Review, New Political Science, Du Bois Review and book chapters in Contemporary Public Policy and Social Development in the Post-Civil Rights Era: Through the Prism of Dr. Martin Luther King’s Dream and Oxford’s Handbook on Protest Music (forthcoming).
In 2017, she hosted the first political Hip Hop conference at Georgia State University entitled, Behind the Music: Hip Hop and Social Justice, which examined the ways in which social justice is addressed and expressed within Hip Hop culture. In 2018, she was a Nasir Jones/ W. E. B. Du Bois Hip-Hop fellow with the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. Later that year she completed two talks in in Ingelheim and Kaiserslautern, Germany discussing the relevance and importance of rap music, activism and social justice and she received her certificate in psychoanalysis from Emory University’s Psychoanalytic Institute.
In 2019, Dr. Bonnette-Bailey presented at TedX talk entitled “The Political Impact of Rap Music” and in 2020, she hosted Beyond the Culture: Black Popular Culture and Social Justice at Georgia State University. In 2021, Dr. Bonnette-Bailey founded the podcast The Intersection: Where Black Popular Culture Meets Social Justice, which can be found on all of your podcasts servers. Finally, in 2021 Dr. Bonnette-Bailey appeared in the Bounce Network original documentary Protect or Neglect, where she discussed the history of policing and the disparities within the Black community. Dr. Bonnette-Bailey has been interviewed by numerous news outlets including VOX, the AJC, CBS 46, Washington Post, W.A.B.E., BBC, Atlanta Magazine, ABC News, 11 Alive News, TheGrio and numerous other news outlets.
Dr. Bonnette-Bailey currently teaches classes on Black women and politics, Black political behavior, Black politics, Hip-Hop and politics, racial attitudes and identity politics.
Dr. Bonnette-Bailey completed her undergraduate studies at Winthrop University and her doctoral degree in the Department of Political Science at The Ohio State University.