Once midnight hits and it’s 2016, many people create New Year’s Resolutions they probably don’t keep after a week. Not for Klaudius Maynard, who decided to call his friend Elayna Paulk and create a podcast.

“Something got into me and I said to myself ‘I want to start a podcast,’” Maynard said. “I took a big risk and called Elayna… I expected her to say she was busy.”

Paulk immediately said yes, and “The Bashment” was born.

“I just wanted to follow a dream of mine that I hadn’t previously thought about … it came together in a span of three weeks” Maynard said.

Both seniors from Afro-Caribbean descent, the two met in class a year and a half ago, live across from each other and spend every week putting together an hour-long podcast. Thanks to Paulk’s history with editing audio, she handles the technical aspect of “The Bashment.”

“When I was little, I used to play with Audacity and coming from UMTV, I’m a very structured person,” she said. “I tell him ‘Okay Kladius, we need to have rundowns and it needs to be an hour and he just says ‘Are you sure we can’t just talk for an hour?’”

Maynard jokes that he first envisioned the show to be just two friends having conversations to create a more casual and enjoyable atmosphere for anyone listening. Their first episode was an hour and 45 minutes before editing it and Paulk realized there needed to be a time limit or else no one would listen in, especially since the two don’t even have advertisements.

“I mean, we are Oscar-worthy to be that long,” joked Maynard.

The pair began the podcast to create an outlet for students to express their ideas.

“This is a good platform for other people like us, Caribbean students at the University of Miami, so this is a really cool way to have guests [on the show]” Paulk said.

With only three episodes so far, the podcast has already had guests from different backgrounds and topics to talk about, such as a Brazilian student who spoke about women and social media interactions, to up-and-coming comedians. They hope to continue exploring the views the students have on campus.

“One thing that I do appreciate about doing this podcast is that we don’t talk strictly only about black or Caribbean issues, we talk about everything like pop culture, politics, feminism,” Maynard said. “Having so many different, diverse topics and having different persons talk on the podcast helps us explore where these views come from.”

Although the podcast is relatively new, it already has an average of 300-400 listeners per show and has 50 subscribers on iTunes.

Maynard has had listeners tell him that they didn’t expect to enjoy the whole podcast because they weren’t into the pop culture aspect they began the episode with.

“As the episode progressed, we talked about serious issues and they found themselves invested in it and mad, upset and laughing all at different moments of the podcast” he said. “One section may not be for you but that doesn’t mean the whole podcast isn’t for you.”

Students interested in being a guest on “The Bashment” should email them at [email protected]
Subscribe to “The Bashment” for free on iTunes or visit their website.

Alina Zerpa is a junior majoring in journalism and psychology, a major Oreo enthusiast, and spends way too much time on Tumblr. 

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