Start Your Podcast: I did and so can you!

No one starts anything as an expert and I promise you your first episode will probably be shit! But you can’t get better at anything without practice.

As a broadcaster, being in front of a mic is always where I’ve felt most safe, at ease and at home. Having worked for various radio stations across the country for just over 14 years now in different capacities, my love for the medium has only grown and blossomed as the years have gone by. Having said that, some of the limitations that exist on mainstream radio are what eventually led me to podcasting.

I found that this burgeoning medium gave me so much more room and freedom to not only be a full and nuanced commentator as well as entertainer, but also allowed me carte blanche to speak on the things that were really important to me and people like me. As a black, queer, feminist woman I could now occupy a space of my own creation and use my gift, passion, talent and experience as a broadcaster to say and do something meaningful, something of value and substance.

My maiden project, Stay Woke With Sibs was a commissioned podcast for the radio station I currently work for, 5fm. Under the watchful but encouraging eye of my managers at the time, Justine Cullinan and Grant Nash, I produced and presented a show that spoke to saucy and sobering issues and themes around art, business, sex, gender, social justice, mental health and a plethora of other topics.

After 5 seasons of that project, I hung up the Stay Woke hat and embarked on a different sonic journey, teaming up with the formidable Stanley Gabriel to create a podcast about light work, purpose and alignment called Sizoba’Right with Sibs and Stan. At the time, we were neither of us “right” or “ok” and primarily wanted to draw on the lived experience of others who seemed to be “making it” or “ok”, to see what key learnings we could take away from their stories as a means of improving our own wellness.

Halfway across town, one of my best friends and former Rhodes Music Radio colleague turned Doctor of Philosophy, Nosipho Mngomezulu was on her own podcast journey. At the time she was one of the brains and voices behind the show The Academic Citizen which explored a diversity of topics and opinions relating to higher education in South Africa today and in the future.

As the only two podcasters either of us knew personally, Nosipho and I would often engage in long, hilarious conversations about podcasts and our love and appreciation for them. We would often recommend different shows to one another but always ended up lamenting the shortage of the voices and stories within this space that sounded like ours and that we could really relate to. It was then that she came up with the very bright idea to start our own podcast network, because we might in fact be the ones we had been looking and waiting for. Podcast networks were of course not a particularly new concept. We certainly weren’t pioneers in this regard, but there weren’t any offering us a seat at the table, so we built our own.

With the technical genius and assistance of our longtime friend (another RMR alum) Stuart Buchanan, we all three put our heads, expertise, wifi and pockets together to create Off The Record: A Podcast Network. Off The Record is a network of independently produced and published South African podcasts, a digital home for conversations we felt had been kept off the record for far too long. We wanted to bring together young African voices, stories, experiences and interests that presented in podcast form and give them a direct, unfiltered, unapologetic space to live and commune. Our vision was to band together as local podcasters in order to share resources, information, content, opportunities and listeners while also digitally sharing and sending our location to any podcast enthusiast who was looking for exactly what we were all making and creating.

To date, Off The Record is home to 14 locally made podcasts and is growing as more people begin to bravely venture into this world and medium. Nosipho and I strongly believe that creating is for everyone and anyone can be an artist if they choose to put the time, research and heart into their craft. This very belief is what catapulted us to create the podcast Is This Thing On? On it, we speak primarily to those who want to begin podcasting but don’t know how. We not only detail and compare our personal journeys but also give step by step instructions to the broadcast layman who wishes to join this community.

For anyone wishing to start their own podcast, I’d obviously recommend that they listen to Is This Thing On? But there are also SO many online resources available, the best of those being Lutcha.com. Lutcha is a “digital podcasting company that aims to change the African Millennial narrative through digital content”. On the site, you’ll not only find their African podcast library but also a podcast guide page where you’re guaranteed to find everything you need to know about starting your own podcast. Shout out to Lutcha founder @Mashstartup for the work he does to make this space so accessible and easy to navigate.

For those more interested in short-form interactive podcasting, there is also something called microcasting. This is exactly what it sounds like: a small podcast. These are usually 30 seconds to 2 minutes in length and are current, interactive, inexpensive and recorded and published more frequently than mainstream podcasts. Shout out to microcaster @AsiTheGudgal aka The Voluptuous Voyager who will tweet you any information you need to know about this podcast format.

So you want to start a podcast? The first piece of advice I’d offer is: JUST START! No one starts anything as an expert and I promise you your first episode will probably be shit! But you can’t get better at anything without practice. The point is to continue to create and to hone and sharpen your skills. The second piece of advice I’d give is: sound quality is EVERYTHING! No one wants to listen to something unpleasant. So do your research and make it sound amazing! The last is: lean into it, be authentic and HAVE FUN! You can do this. Trust me.

Resources:

https://www.offtherecord.fm/

https://lutcha.com/

by Sibs Matiyela

Newsreader. Voice Over artist. Writer. Podcaster.

Twitter: @sibaphiwe