ARC

On the wall of a grey Parisian apartment building, a small plaque commemorates the life of activist Dulcie September. She lived in the building at the time of her murder in 1988. The plaque reads: “Dulcie September was killed by apartheid.” The second episode of the podcast series They Killed Dulcie continues where episode one left off. The journey begins in a Parisian suburb, but ends in Johannes...

On 29 March 1988 five bullets ended the life of liberation movement activist Dulcie September. After years in prison and decades in exile, she spearheaded anti-Apartheid efforts in France, Switzerland and Luxembourg from a small office in Paris. Why was she killed? Who profited from her murder? Why do her killers roam free? This is the first episode of the podcast series They Killed Dulcie. It's t...

On 29th March 1988 five bullets ended the life of liberation movement activist Dulcie September. Having fled Cape Town she spear-headeded anti-apartheid efforts in France, Switzerland and Luxembourg from a small office in Paris. Why was she killed? who profited from her murder? Why do her killers roam free? Sound Africa and Open Secrets ZA are launching a new eight part investigative podcast serie...

This episode is made by our friends Aswat: Voices of Arabia from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, who make podcasts about women from this region, who tell stories about their lives, achievements and aspirations at a time when restrictions on women have been easing. This episode is called… Cat Mama and is about Farah who has 300 cats living with her and she feeds about 600 street cats. Hosted on Acast. See ac...

In this episode Seventy-something grandmother, Monica Cromhout, has gone from law-abiding teetotaler to an evangelist for the benefits of psychedelic – magic mushrooms. Marianne Thamm tells us how she come to be at the forefront of the legal drive to have South Africa’s drugs laws declared unconstitutional. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Friends of SoundAfrica Ep04 - OurAfrica - Meet Labelz by Sound Africa Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The award-winning South African radio show and podcast. The first series investigates the case of a man who may have been wrongfully convicted for 17 years. Compelling, long-form investigative radio told over eight episodes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When record store owner Jeff Bubeck buys an old record collection out of an abandoned storage unit, he has no idea what he’s stumbled across. Jeff learns the collection once belonged to the late great J Dilla, one of the greatest hip hop producers of all time. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We’ve been listening to some great podcasts which we’d like to share with you. Over the next few weeks we’re going to play an episode from each of our friends. This one is made by our friends 'Honeymoon Studios' who make podcasts about interesting local stories. This episode is called Giants of Lesotho. It's a true story of wise men, warriors and an ideology that created the country of Lesotho. Th...

Like our country, many of us in South Africa have complicated histories. Our ancestral backgrounds are almost always a mix contradicting the simple apartheid era classifications of Indian, black, white and colored. For many of us, these classifications are simply not enough, we need to know where we're coming from, so we're able to move on. In this story, Candice Nolan tries to find the answers sh...

On a summer morning in 1997, a man was arrested with a plastic bag full of party drugs in a park in Pretoria. The man was Wouter Basson, also known as Dr. Death. Basson was the head of the apartheid-era chemical and biological warfare program Project Coast. Today he works as a cardiologist in a private practice in Durbanville outside Cape Town. In this Sound Africa episode we re-visit the story of...

The first ever heart transplant in the world was performed in South Africa in 1967. It was an international triumph, and the surgeon in charge, Dr. Christiaan Barnard became an over night celebrity. But did Christiaan Barnard deserve all the credit? In this Sound Africa podcast we investigate the persistent rumor that a black man named Hamilton Naki played a much bigger role in the surgery than he...

This Sound Africa Podcast is a story of a man and his mother. While it is set in the transition years between the old and the new South Africa, the story is a deeply personal narrative of how the past never goes away, but always travels with us. It is a story of grief and how a son tries to escape his own. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1985, South African music legend Ray Phiri collaborated with a number of other South African artists on Paul Simon’s legendary Graceland album. While the recording of the album from the beginning was mired in controversy, it was not until almost 30 year later, Ray Phiri revealed that he felt had been cheated out of his royalties and composer rights by Paul Simon. That there was bad blood betwee...

In this episode we meet Anthero Bowie, a former gang member who is out of prison and trying to reinvent himself as a poet. But is it possible for Bowie to reinvent himself? The entire episode plays out in his neighbourhood, Belhar Extension 13 in Cape Flats. A neighborhood that produces young men like Anthero everyday, and now refuses to see him in a new light. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/priva...

Bongani Dyalivana is a 29-year-old man from Cape Town. He has been out of jail for just over two years after serving a 10-year sentence. In this Sound Africa podcast we hear Bongani’s story. It is a story of loss, of growing up in a gang and then in jail. Of finding oneself and trying to break a new path. Bongani shares the outline of his story with many other South African men. And we hear about...

Sometimes taking a detour can show you an entire world you did not know existed. That is what happens to reporter Lars Overland, who drives into a Karoo ghost town on his way to somewhere else and ends up chasing ghosts through a sleepless night. This story is about the small town of Matjiesfontein in the Karoo. It is a story where the desert wind blows, and the lines between the past and the pres...

When apartheid ended, the big companies that helped the regime buy weapons illegally continued to do business with the new South African government. Until today, these companies have never been held accountable. This was the subject of the first People’s Tribunal on Economic Crime held in February this year. In this episode, producer Neroli Price takes us to the Tribunal and delves into the three...

When the coloured population of Simon's Town was forcibly removed, Aunty Patty’s family remained. They were forgotten by the authorities for years. Her nephew Jackie, on the other hand, was moved to the township of Ocean View, and he clearly remembers the day he loaded his belongings onto a truck and left the town of his childhood behind. He has not forgiven the people responsible. Today Auntie Pa...

Its fifty years since the world’s first heart transplant was performed at Groote Schuur hospital in Cape Town. But, there remains a persistent rumour that a black man called Hamilton Naki played a much bigger role than he has been given credit for. In this podcast SOUND AFRICA investigates and asks why this question still lingers all these years later. This episode is a preview to the new Sound Af...

What will the future of South Africa’s energy sector look like? This is the guiding question that leads Sound Africa’s newest producer, Neroli Price, to paint three possible future scenarios. Speaking to a range of experts, activists and those trying out innovative alternatives, she takes the listener on a journey from paradise to hell, and ending up somewhere in the middle. Where we end up depend...

In this third instalment of Sound Africa’s Nuclear SA mini-series, Dhashen Moodley takes a look at the potential consequences of uranium mining in the Karoo. We speak to a Khoi-San activist who, drawing parallels with recent protests at Standing Rock in the USA, worries about the threat uranium mining poses to water supplies in this arid land. Meanwhile local farmers voice their concerns, politici...

South Africans would already be familiar with headlines warning of the likelihood of enormous corruption in the nuclear procurement programme. Is this just hysteria, or is there reason to fear that we’re headed towards something like the “arms deal on steroids”? To help answer this question, we situate the nuclear deal in its international context, finding out what went wrong with a current nuclea...

This is the first of a four-part Sound Africa series exploring the tangled web of South Africa’s nuclear past, present and future. Reporter Rasmus Bitsch begins this story at an art gallery in Johannesburg’s stylish suburb of Maboneng, where artist Vincent Bezuidenhout is shining a spotlight on South Africa’s secret nuclear history through his exhibition Fail Deadly. From there, we connect the dot...

African Space - The Live Documentary is a live recording of a collaboration between Sound Africa and Encounters South African International Documentary Festival. It is a poetic journey featuring internationally renowned astronomers and townspeople of the Karoo. What they all share is a proximity to the biggest science project in the world: a giant radio telescope called The Square Kilometer Array...