In Africa, female podcasters make their voices heard
Podcasting is on the rise in Africa, providing content creators with new opportunities and freedom to get their voices heard. And women are forging their own path on the podcasting scene, as DW's Edith Kimani reports from Nairobi.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 of great sex for me is freedom to be super loud.
00:05 - Lydia K.M and Murugimuni
00:07 may have unfiltered conversations,
00:09 but the podcast stars carefully curate their image.
00:13 They've just wrapped up creating content
00:15 which will be released over the coming month
00:17 for their podcast, "The Messy In Between" or TMI.
00:21 Recently, they've been named one of Africa's top shows.
00:24 They say they're offering something new
00:26 for an African audience,
00:28 talking about their lives in a fresh and uninhibited way.
00:31 - There are some people who will still be like,
00:33 "You young girls should not be talking about this.
00:35 You're corrupting the young, the youth or something."
00:37 Then the others were like,
00:38 "Wow, thank you for talking about this.
00:39 Thank you for sharing some of these things
00:41 that other women are going through.
00:42 I thought I was alone.
00:43 You know, I'm also going through it."
00:45 And for us, I feel like those people,
00:46 that second group, they are what keep us going.
00:48 - TMI discusses sensitive and taboo topics
00:51 in a bantering, relaxed style.
00:54 - No one is applauding a woman for being a mom
00:56 to a kid that she gave birth to,
00:57 but people are applauding.
00:58 - It's an intimate way of talking
00:59 that has endeared them to a loyal fan base.
01:02 - We like to create unfiltered.
01:05 So, and that's what we were doing
01:07 on our own individual pages,
01:08 like authentically creating and sharing our journeys
01:11 in a very vulnerable and open way.
01:14 So we wanted TMI to be that,
01:15 but now in a stronger concentration
01:18 and more focused on the struggles women have.
01:20 - Across the city, Adele Onyango and her team
01:23 are getting a booth ready to take her new media company,
01:26 Legally Clueless Africa, to a large beauty exhibit.
01:30 She started a personal podcast five years ago.
01:33 Now, she runs a fully-fledged media enterprise,
01:36 offering training to budding podcasters.
01:38 - What I did is come up with a curriculum,
01:40 digital curriculum to coach Africans
01:45 on how can they make sustainable content
01:48 that then leads them to being new media practitioners.
01:52 And also we've had our own in-house masterclasses
01:56 on podcasting, teaching about the business angle,
01:59 'cause a big part of sustainability
02:00 is not only the content,
02:01 but also how do we make sure
02:03 you're making adequate revenue?
02:05 - Seeing women make that revenue and keeping it
02:09 is something close to Melissa Mbugua's heart.
02:12 She works for Africa PodFest,
02:13 which supports podcasters in a range of different ways.
02:17 - We can see this future, this potential,
02:20 but if we don't step in, like in, in,
02:25 and talk about the money,
02:27 talk about how are we going to actually create
02:30 business models out of this,
02:31 how are we going to make sure that the money flows
02:33 in a way that centers us, the historically marginalized,
02:38 then it's going to pass by us,
02:41 pass, it's going to pass,
02:43 and other people will kind of take it over
02:45 if we are not, if they don't come and find us.
02:49 - Back at the studio, Lydia and Murugi wrap the day's shoot.
02:53 With over a million plays across various platforms,
02:56 their podcast is now able to do what most cannot, pay them.
03:01 We really appreciate you. Thank you.