Listen To Your Footsteps

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 and discovering how stories could expand her world and deepen her compassion.
She talks about choosing a “life less ordinary” over a safe medical career, discovering journalism during the turbulent early 1990s, and following crime stories that led her into the orbit of a serial killer targeting Black women in Johannesburg.
Angela shares the extraordinary story behind Red Ink – how a planned non‑fiction project, prison visits and manipulative love letters turned into a groundbreaking crime novel and, later, a TV adaptation.
We explore how she built Britespark Communications from her apartment at 26, pitched major events like Miss Malaika while broke, and learned to “talk a big talk” long before the opportunities caught up.
She reflects on leading young teams across generations, running a business through recessions, juggling motherhood and multiple roles, and why she believes you must stay the constant while the world changes around you.
If you care about African storytelling, crime fiction, entrepreneurship, or what it really means to turn a life into narrative, this conversation is for you.
If you enjoyed this episode, follow Listen To Your Footsteps, leave a review, and share it with someone who loves powerful African stories. For more conversations, visit Kojo’s website and subscribe to the newsletter.
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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 press releases, MySpace and Twitter’s early days, and the gritty reality of building Tutone Communications from scratch.
They talk about how a mixed-masala childhood in Durban and Joburg shaped Melanie’s belief that “wealth is love and giving back”, why PR chose her long before she knew the job title, and what it really takes to keep a boutique agency alive when algorithms, platforms and audiences refuse to sit still. She opens up about heartbreak, losing everything on a hip-hop concert, choosing clients by energy rather than fees, and learning business lessons SARS-first.
Melanie also shares the quieter side of her work: blogging on Hyprïs Life, raising three kids while navigating ageism in youth culture, and finding deep purpose as a board member and deputy chair at Special Olympics South Africa, championing differently abled athletes who rarely get mainstream airtime. This is a conversation about hype, heart, hustling ethically, and growing older without losing your curiosity.
If you’re on your own creative or entrepreneurial path – in PR, media, music, sport or storytelling – this episode will give you both practical insight and a reminder that there is no single route to doing meaningful work.
Listen, share with someone who needs to hear this, and leave a review so more people can find these African stories.

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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 dreams in Switzerland and the US, and hitting a deep depression that left him staring into “the void”. Out of that darkness came a simple idea: disrupt old-school laundry by building a sneaker cleaning service for a new, convenience-driven generation.
We talk about grief that never quite goes away, learning to “feel the feeling” instead of running from it, and how sport taught Lolo more about business, teamwork and leadership than any lecture hall. He breaks down the early days in a 10m² container in Maboneng, the moment a Springbok and a tired mother validated the concept, and why he believes The Sneaker Shack is really in the business of behaviour change and saving people time.
If you’re building something from scratch, juggling mental health, or just trying to make peace with your own story, this conversation offers practical insight and a lot of quiet courage.
Listen, subscribe and share this episode with a founder, sneaker lover or friend who needs to hear that you can start exactly where you are. Leave a review to help more listeners discover African stories like this.

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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 hostels, trains and a grandmother’s homestead, dancing for Brenda Fassie, navigating 80s and 90s modelling cliques, and eventually stepping behind the scenes as a stylist and creative director before designing his own collections. You’ll hear how miners’ patched trousers, string‑cars, Pantsula culture and kasi classic cars became design references, and how he uses colour, lace and tailoring to expand ideas of Black masculinity on and off the runway.
Ephraim also reflects on the loss of community, the rise of individualism and the impact of AI and technology on fashion work – asking what it means to protect craft, jobs and humanity while still evolving with the times. This is a masterclass in South African cultural history, fashion storytelling and the courage it takes to keep reinventing yourself without losing your roots.
If this conversation resonates, follow the podcast, share the episode with another creative, and leave a review – it helps more listeners discover these African stories.
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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 family, watching his father carry responsibility and choosing which parts of that inheritance he is willing to accept. He and Kojo unpack how art, stand‑up comedy and recorded conversations become a living archive, giving their kids language and context for who their parents are and why they made certain decisions.
Together they move through stories of family businesses, neighbourhood patrols, community WhatsApp groups and the people they now recognise as people living with unspoken pain. They interrogate birth order, masculinity, duty, mental illness and the tension between African communal life and modern urban individualism – always returning to the question of what we actually pass on when we say we love our families and our country.
If you are a creative, a parent or a South African wrestling with your own generational story, this conversation will remind you that laughter is often how we touch the hardest truths and still move forward together.
Listen, share and subscribe to Listen To Your Footsteps on Spotify, YouTube and your favourite podcast app. If this episode resonates, leave a rating, write a review, and send it to someone navigating their own generational reckonings.

Recorded at Vodcasttv
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