Listen To Your Footsteps

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.

#MelanieRamjee #Hypress #PublicRelations #SouthAfricanPodcast #AfricanStorytelling #TutoneCommunications #SpecialOlympicsSA #MusicIndustry #Entrepreneurship #WomenInPR

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.

#LoloNdlovu #TheSneakerShack #AfricanEntrepreneurs #SneakerCulture #SouthAfricanBusiness #MentalHealth #GriefAndHealing #BusinessOfTime #KojoBaffoe #ListenToYourFootsteps

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.
#EphraimMolingoana #Ephymol #SouthAfricanFashion #SowetoStories #QwaQwa #Menswear #AfricanDesign #TownshipCulture #FashionHistory #ListenToYourFootsteps

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
#TatsNkonzo #ListenToYourFootsteps #SouthAfricanPodcast #StandUpComedy #AfricanStorytelling #GenerationalReckonings #ArtAndLegacy #Fatherhood #MentalHealth #Community #SouthAfrica

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, and an ability to read systems — in organisations, in people and in herself.
Today she is the Chief Operations Officer of HBGSchindlers Attorneys in Johannesburg, a Non-Executive Director, a Committee Chair, an IoDSA member, and one of the most compelling voices in South Africa's legal and corporate leadership space. The distance between the taxi ranks and the C-Suite is not a gap she glosses over. It is the whole story — and in this episode, she tells it with full honesty.
This is a conversation about what it takes to move from a reception desk to a corner office, how to build HR and operational systems that actually serve the people inside them, and why the most powerful thing Emily Ntuli can do now is be visible — for her daughter, for township youth, and for every first-generation professional trying to find their footing in a world that was not designed with them in mind.
On this episode:
Growing up in a taxi-industry household and the values her parents built into her
Moving from receptionist to HR administrator and discovering her gift for people and process
How law chose her — long before she had the language to choose it back
Navigating retrenchment on both sides — as someone retrenched, and as someone who had to do it to others
Running a beauty salon as an act of entrepreneurship, survival and self-determination
Becoming a mother and how it sharpened her sense of purpose and urgency
Quiet leadership — why introversion is a strategic advantage in loud corporate environments
Building systems that protect people, not just organisations
Her vision for making South Africa's legal sector more human and more inclusive
Legacy, visibility and the open door she is determined to hold for those coming behind her
From the taxi ranks of Pretoria to the C-Suite of a Johannesburg law firm. This is Emily Ntuli's story.
Listen now and follow Listen To Your Footsteps for new episodes every week.

#EmilyNtuli #ListenToYourFootsteps #TaxiRanksToCsuite #HBGSchindlers #WomenInLeadership #COO #SouthAfricanPodcast #LegalSector #HRLeadership #BlackWomenInBusiness #TownshipToBoardroom #CareerJourney #FirstGenerationGraduate #AfricanLeadership #WomenEmpowerment #SocialMobilitySA #OperationsManagement #SystemsThinking #SouthAfricaBusiness #PodcastSA