Adelle Onyango Believes New Media is Liberating African Storytellers

Fifteen years ago, Kenyan media entrepreneur and podcaster, Adelle Onyango wanted to be a public relations professional, but an offer to work in radio changed that. Not one to turn down opportunities, she grabbed the mic and didn’t look back.

Long after the glamor of working in media and interacting with celebrities at Kiss 100 FM wore off, Onyango’s desire to tell stories on a broader scale began nagging at her. Despite her uncertainty and calls for caution from friends and colleagues, she quit her job in 2019 to start the Legally Clueless Africa podcast.

“I thought I was mad. But I was like, I'm turning 30, let me just try. I don't have kids. I don't have dependents. What's the worst that can happen? You can't see the entire staircase, but you put one foot in front of the other,” she says.

Having experienced how media gagging and politically driven stories influence what Kenyan traditional media focuses on, she was determined to have the freedom to tell stories.

For decades, Kenyan media has been in an uphill battle with its government and National Assembly attempting to gag them, induce advertising budget cuts, and control the stories they can cover. Shutting off broadcast stations and censuring them for interviews of opposition party members, or coverage of protests is a recurrent habit of the Kenyan government.

In 2018, Kenya’s top three TV stations, KTN, Citizen, and NTV, were shut down during live broadcasts of a symbolic inauguration of opposition leader, Raila Odinga. This forced the TV stations to go to court to get the action repelled.

“Our mental health deteriorated immensely while we worked in traditional media houses. Female journalists face ageism, sexual harassment, and not feeling fulfilled. I haven't experienced those things in the five years since I left,” Onyango says, “I’m free to talk about anything on my podcast. Guests can share their political experiences very candidly. These are stories you cannot hear on traditional media here. It's like a breath of fresh air.”

She continues, “New media has made it possible for me to be in rooms to talk to and pitch alongside high-ranking media professionals and established media houses. Impostor syndrome tends to creep in especially when old guards who don't get it ask condescending questions, but my relationship with failure and challenges ignites the entrepreneur in me, keeping me going.”

During workshops and events, she constantly iterates that new media is the future of African storytellers and the way to fully utilize freedom in the continent. For her and her six-member team, great stories can be found in mundane scenarios, that’s why they’re always with a recorder. Striking up conversations in taxis, having heart-to-heart, “therapy sessions” at conferences, and being in spaces where other Africans interact have been vital to the podcast’s growth.

“There was a time I tried to get happier stories. But, I stopped trying to dictate what people come to share. That was my issue with radio, we had to decide what’s interesting about you and would only discuss 1 percent of your life, due to its fast pace,” she says, “Now, I let people tell their stories because there's a reason they decided to share. There’s more depth that way.”

Her desire to diversify real tales of Africans has always been present. But this did not come without challenges. She remembers her early days in podcasting, pitching two radio stations and wishing to get on iHeartRadio to no avail. Inspired by "Rick Dees’ Weekly Top 40," syndication became her top priority. More than viewing it as a revenue pillar, syndication was largely a distribution model for Onyango.

Barely a year after launching Legally Clueless Africa, it became the first syndicated podcast in Kenya through Trace FM. Since then, she has produced exclusive podcast episodes for the radio station, airing on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

“As much as there are more people now listening to podcasts, there's quite a few more who are still listening to traditional radio. I wanted to be able to reach them with our show.”

The society and lifestyle podcast currently has over 8 million streams and 42,000 followers on social media, in a country where only 23 percent of its 53 million population listens to podcasts. Her end goal is to have the podcast syndicated across Africa. In September 2023, it became the first East African podcast featured on iHeartRadio’s Spreaker Prime Network, which Onyango describes as a full-circle moment.

“I’ve wanted to be part of iHeartRadio since I started podcasting. So this partnership is a full circle moment,” she says. “It's also helped our numbers in the African diaspora. The U.S. audience numbers go toe-toe with our Kenyan numbers. We wouldn’t have been able to pull that off so quickly on our own.”

Although reaching an international audience tempts creators to follow Western agendas and spotlight their issues instead, that’s not the case for Onyango. Sharing personal stories about how Africans handle Black tax, therapy, business, and more, is her way of sticking to nuances that make up Africa. Through her podcast and video series, Onyango spotlights the similarities in diverse cultures and experiences that showcase the daily activities, struggles, dreams and triumphs of Africans.

Onyango believes the only way to learn about each other without colonial biases is through our stories, which nobody should dictate how it's toned down or played up. “We must challenge, question, and misbehave a bit more. New media is going to be core to our liberation on different fronts,” adds Onyango.

Onyango advises that the technical bits of creative businesses can be gotten by having the right people from different industries around and trusting their expertise.

“Some of my best business advice comes from my friend who's a farmer. I have another friend whose product has an expiry date, unlike creative content. I get a lot of insights from them. When I was on legacy media, I had many moments when I wanted to quit. But, I’ve never had that with new media, especially by surrounding myself with people I trust. It’s really liberating,” she says.