Rigour & Flow with Aiwan and Tamanda

In this bonus segment, Tamanda and Aiwan dig deeper into the existing and emerging research around LGBTQ+ domestic violence. They reflect on the stories we don’t hear, the data that doesn’t exist or is too easily overlooked, and the ways coercive control shows up in queer relationships, from misgendering and outing to body shaming and withholding gender-affirming care. Tamanda shares insights from...

In this deeply personal and long-overdue episode, we unpack the silences, scripts, and systems that shape how we understand abuse, and how they fail queer people in particular. Aiwan opens up for the first time about her experience of domestic violence in a same-sex relationship, and what made it so hard to recognise or name.  Tamanda reflects on a coercive relationship marked by gaslighting,...

⚠️ Content warning: domestic violence, emotional abuse Some stories mark you. Even when they’re not yours. Even when you’re just eight years old, standing in the corner, trying not to breathe. Even when the person on the phone says they’re dying, and you believe them - because how could someone LIE like that? In this first episode of Season 2, we’re talking about the kinds of relationships we don’...

Tamanda introduces us to a podcast that deeply moved her: Sunday School for Misfits , created by theologian and public educator Dr Selina Stone. Tamanda shares how she first met Selina through a chance encounter at a ‘Life Beyond the PhD’ residential - a connecting moment that led to a research collaboration which exposed her to Selina’s unique approach to theology, which is as rigorous as it is c...

We’re keeping your ears and minds warm between seasons by spotlighting the shows and creators who are moving us, challenging us, and reminding us why we do what we do. This week, Aiwan shares a pick close to her heart: an episode from The Pursuit Playbook hosted by Aprileen Alexander - a finance powerhouse, creative producer, and former gal-dem team member. Produced by AiAi Studios, the show is a...

We’re back with another Notes from the Margins - our freestyle format where we bring the ideas, tensions, and fragments we’re still sitting with. This one’s all about the stuff that didn’t feel done. The thoughts that followed us around. And the threads we couldn’t let go of. First, we return to Episode 1, and our conversation about faith and queerness as Africans. We talk about what it meant to o...

We decided to do something a little different... We went LIVE for the very first time. To reflect on the journey so far, answer listener questions, and share a glimpse of life behind the scenes of Rigour & Flow. What followed was a surprising, hilarious, and deeply moving encounter with the people who’ve been with us from the jump. We were joined by listeners from across our community - some w...

What if time wasn’t neutral? What if urgency was a trap? What if the clock, like so many systems, was never made with us in mind? We step outside grind culture to ask how time works, and who it works for. From production schedules to academic timelines, we explore how time shapes us, pressures us, and polices us as we navigate systems that demand constant productivity - and often without care or a...

We’re taking it back to the roots - exploring the stories, struggles, and politics wrapped up in Black hair. Aiwan opens up about being raised in a Pentecostal church that saw pride and beauty as sin - where dreadlocks were demonised, and even beads were banned. Tamanda reflects on her early obsession with Toni Braxton, the pain of getting her hair chemically straightened, and the complex cocktail...

We explore the complicated inheritance of being Black and British - and how migration, class, race, and belonging continue to shape our stories today. Aiwan reflects on growing up in Britain as the daughter of a Nigerian immigrant mum, caught between a confident Nigerian identity at home and a fraught, often hostile Black Britishness outside it. Meanwhile, Tamanda shares what it meant to migrate f...

We open up about two family stories that changed how we understand mental health, culture, and the systems that claim to heal us. Tamanda shares the story of her mother's diagnosis - and the painful reality of watching an indigenous African spiritual tradition be misread as delusion by a colonial medical model. Aiwan reflects on her own mother’s experience during the Covid-19 pandemic, when powerf...

For this episode of Rigour & Flow , we’re back with another Notes From the Margins - our free-flowing format where we each bring something we can't stop thinking about. Tamanda dives deep into the messy, glamorous world of Netflix’s Young, Famous & African . From Pan-African fame and chaotic conflict styles, we delve deep into the question of how reality TV sometimes hits deeper than we ex...

Can you rewrite your money story – or are you stuck with the one you inherited? We crack open the money stories we inherited, and the ones we’re trying to rewrite. Aiwan shares how growing up in a fundamentalist church taught her that true faith meant living modestly, shunning wealth, and being "in the world, but not of it" - until later encounters with the prosperity gospel preached that material...

The story we almost didn’t tell - a personal, unfiltered conversation about fertility, fibroids, and what it’s like to try and build a family as a Black queer couple. Aiwan speaks candidly about internalised shame, cultural silence, and growing up in a faith community where sex, queerness, and pregnancy were taboo. Tamanda reflects on what it meant to come out of a ten-year heterosexual relationsh...

In this third episode of Rigour & Flow , we introduce our new three-part format - spotlighting the stories, ideas, and questions we can’t stop thinking about. Aiwan unpacks a jarring moment in the hit show Call the Midwife to explore how Black people are represented (and misrepresented) on screen, and what it says about who’s behind the camera. Tamanda dives into the story of HillmanTok - a vi...

Why do so many Black creatives and researchers walk away from the industries they once fought to be part of? In this second episode of Rigour & Flow , we examine the silencing, sanitising, and sidelining of Black thought within white-dominated systems - from academia to media. Drawing from Tamanda’s experiences in research and Aiwan’s in TV production, we unpack the emotional and professional...

Can you be queer, African, and Christian - all at once? In the first ever episode of Rigour & Flow , Aiwan reflects on the five-year anniversary of her documentary Kenyan, Christian, Queer - a powerful film about LGBTQ+ life, faith, and resistance in Africa. She and Tamanda dive deep into the complexities of reconciling Africanness, Christianity, and queerness - both in their own lives and thr...

We’re Aiwan and Tamanda, two Black women with 20 years each in entertainment, research, and social justice. We’re also a married couple figuring out what it means to build a life and two businesses together. We'll talk about the realities of business, making creative work that matters, and navigating research with integrity. If you’re navigating business, love, and the messiness of life while tryi...