Listen To Your Footsteps

Joburg‑born filmmaker Stephina Zwane Groenewald grew up in the inner city, learning to read the rough edges of Hillbrow and Joubert Park as closely as she read poetry and history. In this conversation, she talks to Kojo Baffoe about child TV fame on Craz-E, finding her voice behind the camera, and how Sorele Media’s films like Baby Mamas and Love, Sex and 30 Candles centre everyday African lives w...

Lebo Madiba is the founder and managing director of PR Powerhouse, one of South Africa's most respected strategic communications firms. She has spent her career at the intersection of stories, brands, culture, and trust — navigating white boardrooms as a young Black woman, building a business from a bedroom and a Vodacom dongle, managing reputations for the likes of South African Airways, Nedb...

What if the food your grandmother cooked was not just a meal — but a memory that could heal you? In Episode 131 of Listen To Your Footsteps, Kojo Baffoe sits down with Mokgadi Itsweng — plant-based food activist, award-winning chef and author of Veggielicious — for one of the most honest and deeply rooted conversations the show has ever produced. Mokgadi's story moves from a childhood in Mamel...

Veli Ngubane grew up belonging to nowhere. In the mornings he was the township kid at a Model C school. In the evenings he was the "cheese boy" who came back speaking differently. Neither world accepted him. That rejection, navigated daily across two distinct economies, forced him inward — and built a centre so solid that nothing has moved it since. Today Veli is the co-founding partner...

In this episode of Listen To Your Footsteps, Kojo Baffoe sits down with bestselling author, PR entrepreneur and TV co‑producer Angela Makholwa Moabelo to trace her journey from crime reporter to running Britespark Communications and writing some of South Africa’s most compelling noir fiction. Growing up in Tembisa, Angela found refuge in books, hiding in closets with Reader’s Digest anthologies an...

Melanie “Hypress” Ramjee has been bringing the noise to South African culture for almost three decades – from running nightclub doors and bedroom record labels to steering sold-out festivals and global campaigns as a boutique PR founder. In this episode of  Listen To Your Footsteps , Kojo Baffoe sits down with “The Empress of Hype” to trace a journey that includes Black August, the fax-era of pres...

What does it take to turn grief, depression and a student project into a national sneaker-care empire? In this episode, Kojo Baffoe sits down with Lolo Ndlovu, founder and CEO of The Sneaker Shack, to unpack the story behind South Africa’s leading sneaker cleaning retail chain. Lolo traces his journey from losing his mother at four and being raised by a present, devoted father, to chasing football...

Soweto streets. QwaQwa cattle. Boarding‑school dorms that almost burned. Fashion runways from Johannesburg to Istanbul. In this episode of Listen To Your Footsteps, Ephraim Molingoana traces how South African history, township life and village memory shaped his journey from breakdancer and “silent actor” model to founder of menswear label Ephymol. He shares vivid stories of growing up between host...

When South African comedian and musical satirist Tats Nkonzo sits down with Kojo Baffoe, laughter becomes a way of working through generational reckonings – from fathers and family businesses to childhood characters, mental health and the country their children will inherit. In this episode of  Listen To Your Footsteps , Tats reflects on growing up as the last born in a loving but complicated fami...

Her father owned taxis. She runs a law firm. Emily Ntuli grew up the fourth daughter in a township in Pretoria, in a household shaped by the grit, dignity and stigma of South Africa's taxi industry. There was no professional blueprint to follow, no family member who had walked into a boardroom before her. What Emily had was a work ethic inherited from her parents, a quiet and relentless drive,...

Eddie Hatitye has spent two decades quietly building the infrastructure behind African music. From growing up in Harare with no access to instruments to leading the Music In Africa Foundation and founding the ACCES music market, he has become a key architect of how African sound is documented, funded and shared. Kojo and Eddie unpack the African music ecosystem beyond the stage: live performance a...

From teen model and Channel O presenter to SABC business news anchor and, now, advocate of the High Court of South Africa, Nzinga Qunta has lived several professional lives before forty. In this intimate conversation, she opens up about feeling like she was “performing smartness” on television and why she walked away from the newsroom to test the true limits of her mind in the notoriously gruellin...

In this episode, South African pianist, producer and label head Apiwe Bubu unpacks a 20-year journey from Eastern Cape school halls and Roman’s Pizza shifts to Berklee College of Music, Grammy-winning LA studios and Amapiano nights in Los Angeles. He shares how three failed Berklee auditions, immigrant hustle and a belief in persistence shaped his craft as a mix engineer, composer, DJ and founder...

In this intimate conversation, culture and communications lead  Ntsika Tyatya  traces his journey from “between a mud house and a brick house” to stewarding MAXHOSA AFRICA’s voice on the global fashion stage. He reflects on being a lifelong “B-side” player, exporting African culture from Eastern Cape to Paris, and the sweat equity that turns campus poetry nights into Vogue‑level runways. We explor...

South African conductor, cellist, broadcaster and now author  Kutlwano Masote  joins this episode to trace a life lived between orchestra pits, radio studios and a Soweto home that doubled as a musical oasis. From grandparents who mixed political activism with choir rehearsals to his father Michael’s pioneering work with township orchestras, Masote shows how classical music was never far from Blac...

Donovan Goliath has built a career out of saying “yes” to his curiosity – from comedy stages and Netflix campaigns to design studios, cameras and a 365‑day make‑and‑share project. In this deeply reflective conversation, we slow everything down and unpack what actually sits behind that restless output.​ We talk about the multihyphenate struggle to find a stable “why”, how childhood rejection and ar...

Nomadic childhood. Eight schools in twelve years. Bucket baths in the village, champagne in the city. Kojo sits with African luxury strategist, Matte BLK co-founder and Africa on Luxury podcast host Buyi Mafoko to explore how a life built on movement, matriarchs and education shaped her ability to belong anywhere.​ Buyi talks about money as a means to freedom, the pressure of being “the successful...

Dr Athambile Masola is a writer, poet, researcher and lecturer whose work centres Black women’s histories, reading and education in South Africa. In this episode she traces her journey from a childhood upended by her mother’s mental illness to finding anchors in school, church and the written word, reflecting on how journalling and poetry became a way to witness chaos and grief.​ We dive into Sout...

Born in Eswatini, raised in New York, and now shaping how the world hears Africa – Nkosiyati 'Yati' Khumalo's journey from third-culture kid to GQ South Africa's first Black editor-in-chief globally, Apple Music Africa editorial lead and founding Editor-in-Chief of Billboard Africa is a masterclass in curiosity, resilience and reinvention. In this conversation, Yati opens up about growing up betwe...

In this conversation, South African composer, singer, songwriter and visual artist Asanda “Msaki” Lusaseni opens up about what it really takes to catch songs between worlds while keeping your heart soft and your life intact. She traces her journey from an academic, sports driven Eastern Cape childhood and an unfinished fine art degree to leaving university, building her own label and learning the...

Felicia Naiwa Sithebe is a producer, creative director and cultural worker whose life sits at the crossroads of theatre, television and radical care for African actors. In this conversation, she opens up about surviving a lupus scare and ICU, the gratitude alarms that now instruct her to dance in the middle of the day, and how those near‑loss moments reshaped her relationship with work, family and...

Senior marketing and communications strategist Tumi Rabanye joins Listen To Your Footsteps to explore why the best brand and creative strategies start with endless questions, not quick answers. Growing up between law, music and broadcasting in Mafikeng, she learnt to look behind the mic and ask who decides how society speaks, thinks and sees itself. In this conversation, Tumi reflects on the influ...

What happens when your life refuses to fit into a single box? In this conversation, Kojo Baffoe sits down with Dr Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh, Oxford-educated scholar, SMWX host, musician and former aspiring professional footballer, to explore what it means to live between worlds.​ From dreams of playing for Liverpool and recording hip-hop with Entity alongside AKA, to studying politics, philosophy and econ...

Actor, poet, musician and social activist Antonio David Lyons joins Listen To Your Footsteps to talk about grief, ancestors and what it means to keep stepping through every open door. Raised between Jamaican, Bahamian and African American worlds, Antonio traces how dance, poetry and libraries became early places of healing and imagination, long before New York stages or South African screens. He s...

Chartered marketer, brand strategist and podcast host Mpeo Nkosi joins Listen To Your Footsteps to talk about burnout, career change and choosing an intentional life beyond corporate comfort. In this honest conversation, she shares how staying too long in the wrong role made her physically ill, why she now works three days a week and what it really takes to design the next 23 years of your working...