Listen To Your Footsteps

She arrived at Rhodes University in 1994 unable to properly speak English, and left having discovered she was Black. Jacqueline Rainers-Setai grew up in the Northern Areas of Gqeberha, in a community that was never told it lived in a township.
She has spent two decades deciding what South Africa watches — part of the pioneering drama Soul City, commissioning for SABC 2 as the Content Hub was formed with a mandate to change an entire industry, and becoming the first Black woman to launch a 24-hour digital channel when she put a team together within Moja Love in four months.
She is candid about the cost. The shame she carried for decades. Voting ANC while her mother voted National Party. Walking into film school at 46 and sitting with nineteen-year-olds. Two years living in Durban, away from her husband and children, for a job she loves.
And she makes an argument that deserves wider hearing: South Africa lost its film culture because government funded the making of films and never funded the watching of them.
She is now writing a memoir called Becoming Black.
In this episode: The township they were never told they lived in. Learning English in six months. Inside SABC commissioning, and the power it handed people. Launching a channel from nothing. Film school at 46. Marriage across culture, and why love was not enough.
Guest: Jacqueline Rainers-Setai) — Manager of Productions, KwaZulu-Natal Tourism and Film Authority; AFCI Board Member 2026; former Head of Moja Love and SABC 2 Commissioning Editor.
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Sizakele Marutlulle reflects on learning to be a student again, allowing curiosity to lead, and why a meaningful personal brand begins not with followers, filters or packaging—but with the content of your character. As she puts it: if we were meant to focus only on doing, we would have been called human doings.
Watch this LTYF Moment for a thoughtful reminder to follow what interests you, embrace the unfamiliar, and spend more time becoming who you are.
Watch/listen to the full episode of Listen To Your Footsteps with Sizakele Marutlulle

What does it mean to make a photograph that holds more than a moment?
In this episode of Listen to Your Footsteps, Kojo Baffoe sits down with Soweto-born documentary and commercial photographer, photographic artist and printmaker Andile Bhala. Their conversation moves through memory, music, football, bicycles, fatherhood, creative process and the responsibility of documenting the places and people that shape us.
Andile reflects on growing up in a lively four-room home in Orlando West, Soweto, where stories, music and a constant flow of people taught him how to observe. He shares how a football dream gave way to photography; how cycling became a vehicle for community, discovery and visual storytelling; and why the best camera is often simply the one in your hand.
They also explore Andile’s belief that “paper remembers more”, the delicate line between commercial work and documentary truth, and his ongoing project on names, identity and generational legacy. Most powerfully, this is a conversation about seeing Johannesburg honestly: its beauty, its decay, its noise, its contradictions and the hope it must continue to offer those who arrive looking for a future.
If you care about South African photography, Soweto stories, visual culture, Johannesburg, African creativity, documentary practice and the art of paying attention, this episode is for you.
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We're looking back on some of our favorite moments from past episodes. The ones that made us pause, reflect, and feel something. In this highlight reel, Zoë Modiga opens up about humanising her father, the beautiful memory of stealing her grandfather's pens, the childhood dentist visit that almost became a career, trusting intuition as a creative compass, why she'll always be an "album artist," and what really brings her joy.
A reflective, heartfelt episode on family, creativity, and staying true to yourself.
#ListenToYourFootsteps #ZoeModiga #PodcastHighlights #MemorableMoments #Storytelling #Intuition #CreativeProcess #AlbumArtist #Fatherhood #SouthAfricanMusic #PodcastClips #ReflectionMoments

Simmi Areff wants one thing on the record first: he is a comedian. The podcast pioneer, the group head of audio and video, the man who produces Trevor Noah's podcast, all of it comes after the microphone.
In episode 140, Kojo Baffoe speaks to the comedian and podcaster who built South African podcasting before most people could define the word. From Ike's Bookshop in Durban and a father deeply entrenched in the ANC, through three degrees and a decade of radio programme managers who refused to put him on air, to the corridor in Montreal that changed everything.
We get into what actually makes someone a storyteller, why great audio forgives bad video, and why 80 listeners once generated 500 million rand. Then it goes quieter: losing his father in September, hearing him in the wind, and the safety net that lets him say no to anyone, a roof over his head and a hot plate of food. He is certain his moment has not arrived yet. He thinks it will arrive in London.
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