1Africa : Telling The African Story

In the heart of African city, Johannesburg, at the intersection of Jorissen and Melle street stands still an African multimedia community of radio presenters, journalists, production minds, and artists who rally under the unification banner of 1Africa. Interestingly, this community operates in the Braamfontein space where you find perhaps the true representation of Africa’s multi-cultural demographic scale, and where students and media industry leaders are concentrated.

In their diversity of culture and field experience, they build one image of telling the African history of independence through the African lenses of storytelling-broadcasting.

I have been fortunate enough to be accorded the opportunity to spend 150 days being a contributory member to this community as a presenter. On the face of it, being part of this community is a developmental opportunity for one’s multi-media experience and a mentorship opportunity. However, behind the eyelids, being part of this community is a practical contribution towards moving away from the dominant Eurocentric dogmas of telling and truly representing the African history and image.

The larger picture is using the youth-student talent at infancy paired with the maturity to build and imagine a complete decolonial image of Africa and its representation in media.

Rarely can you ever witness the creation of such communities in this century of being. If you find them, most likely they’ll be corner isolated seen and treated as obstructors of the rhetorical transformation. For building such communities, the onus was on the vanguard of the political movement, however, the status quo is such that these imperative epistemic decolonial communities are built by affording community patriots who value the channels of thinking imposed on youth.

Worryingly, we neither rarely come together to interrogate why there is an absence of political will to curate such decolonial communities and spaces.

If you’ve ever tuned in, you might have heard me say:

“Welcome to Africa Business Hour, the heart of the African enterprise where I give you the latest business insights and market updates in the continent. In this hour, you are tuned to 1AfricaRadioTv, your number one Pan-Africanist radio station in the continent.”

This is the identity that I had to curate on how we can hold decolonial business discussions as Africans. The main objective was of course to build the 1Africa image, but the specific task was to facilitate a framework of understanding business in the perspectives of African communities.

The last segments I hosted were themed “Educating You For Business”. In these segments, we discussed the mismatch between the business-related degrees/qualification and the ever-evolving practical norms of business especially with the adoption of artificial intelligent. Such discussions stand imperative because Africa is often seen in limited views of being a continent that forever receives and doesn’t create their own. Challenging this backwardness in episteme is important to be even discussed in historical communication mediums such as radio, let alone being held by the youth.

I would openly encourage those in university spaces or at their youth stage, to expose themselves in such communities. Either as enthusiastic youth or as contributors at the forefront of building the African decolonial image.

From Cape to Cario, the moulded vision of Africa should be one and integrated, and should be easily seen in music, food, politics, arts, storytelling, and every other facet of African life.

1AFRICARADIOTV

–MediaHouse150