This week on the 5AM StoryTalk Podcast, I'm joined by an Emmy-winning producer who's helped bring films and TV series like “Underground”, “Rhythm & Flow”, Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey, LaLa Land, Southside with You, Atlanta’s Missing and Murdered: The Lost Children, Stand Up & Shout: Songs from a Philly High School, the 2019 “Jesus Christ Superstar Live and Concert” event, and so many, many more to your screens. He’s also the host of a great podcast of his own called Why Not Me?, which you should listen to, too. I’m talking about Mike Jackson here — co-founder of multimedia production company Get Lifted Film Co.
Mike works at this really exciting intersection of feature films, scripted and reality TV, and documentaries of all kinds. In almost every instance, these projects are socially conscious, very often preoccupied by social justice, and, with just a few exceptions, explore the entirety of the Black American experience — good, bad, beautiful, painful, joyous.
The best way to enjoy this free conversation is to tap on the podcast play button right now and listen to an unabridged version of it in all its incredibly intimate detail. If you prefer to read these chats, Substack provides a transcription. (I’m working on uploading my own, but there’s some kind of glitch the tech team is trying to solve here; more on that soon, I hope.)
Mike and I are going to cover a lot in this conversation including:
The pivotal moments in his early life in Philadelphia that led him to “lean into” his Black identity as an adult and artist
The entrepreneurial experiences in Philly that prepared him for his life as a film/TV producer – including an amusing anecdote about how he signed his future friend and business partner, John Legend
How he broke into Hollywood in his 30s (hustle, hustle, hustle!)
The decisions that led to him forming Get Lifted Film Co. with John and their friend Ty Stiklorious, including its mission statement to create “important” art that resists regressive stereotypes
The Get Lifted TV series “Underground” and its culture-motivated cancelation, the release of the Obamas romantic drama Southside of You just months before Trump was elected in 2016, and the continuing roles of documentaries at the company as a way to shine a light on issues and subjects that should be celebrated
How the Get Lifted brand continues to evolve to react to the demands of Mike’s personal life and the tumultuous landscape that is the entertainment industry in 2025
His candid thoughts on the performative “diversity” that was embraced by Hollywood before and immediately after George Floyd’s murder by police and the state of the film/TV business today for filmmakers, like Mike, who seek to tell more diverse stories
A bonus episode with Mike is available here, so be sure to listen to it, too. In it, he and I discuss two seminal pieces of art from his life — Kwame Brathwaite’s photographs of the Jackson 5 and Muhammad Ali, both taken on the coast of Africa in 1974. Brathwaite popularized the term “Black is beautiful” during the Civil Rights Movement, and I assure you by the end of this bonus chat, you’ll understand what he meant by that — and why Mike has embraced that message his whole life.
