South Africa is a country where silence often wraps itself around pain like a second skin. Whether because of our past or our present struggles, we’ve grown up hearing the word gqina, “be strong,” and soldiering on quietly. At least we used to. In 2025, podcasts have emerged as spaces where South Africans can speak their truths out loud. Local listenership is booming: more than 3.2 million people already tune in regularly, and that number could rise to 4.8 million by 2027. Even more telling is who’s listening—female-hosted shows have seen a 273% surge, pointing to a growing appetite for diverse, emotionally resonant stories.
Among the growing constellation of podcasts showcasing African voices, Dreaming in Color stands out for the way it holds space for the brilliance of the continent. Co-hosted by US-based Darren Isom and Johannesburg-based Elisabeth Makumbi, both of the global social impact advisory firm The Bridgespan Group, the show offers a rare kind of intimacy: one where conversations about identity, mental health and creative resilience are held boldly, with intention and punctuated with joy.
“There’s something profoundly powerful about hearing young African voices speak their truth with clarity and courage. Africa’s youth aren’t waiting to lead someday. They’re already leading. And the world would do well to listen,” Makumbi says.
The fifth season of Dreaming in Color, the next episode of which airs on 24 July 2025, journeys through six African countries, from South Africa to Tunisia, threading together voices that are powerful in their differences and united in purpose. Each episode doesn’t just try to tell a single story but rather lead a chorus of lived experience.
Mental health is one of the central threads tying these stories together. Across the continent, the stigma around depression and trauma still lingers. Vulnerability is often mistaken for weakness, and naming your pain can feel like an act of rebellion. The podcast creates space for those stories to be shared without shame.
In South Africa, where youth depression and suicide rates remain alarmingly high, mental health has become an urgent conversation. A recent episode featuring Kenyan social entrepreneur Tom Osborn, helps move this conversation forward by highlighting the different ways that young Africans approaching the problem. Osborn is leading one of Kenya’s most promising mental health interventions, one designed by young people, for young people, and rooted firmly in African ways of thinking.
Bridging diasporas and dialects
From the heart of the continent to the hustle of the diaspora, the podcast travels far and wide. Conversations move between Johannesburg and London, Dakar and New York, carrying accents, anecdotes and ancestral wisdom across time zones.
Among the guests is Farah Mami, a Tunisian impact investor and community builder who’s creating spaces where women and artists lead from purpose, not pressure. Raised between Paris and Tunis, she speaks to the tension, and the beauty, of living between cultures.
Ore Disu, a Nigerian cultural strategist and museum leader, is reimagining restitution at the Museum of West African Art. She’s not just asking what should be returned, but what must be rebuilt, supporting young creatives, reviving artisan practices and using art as a bridge between fragmented histories.
In South Africa, visual storyteller and arts leader Lekgetho Makola poses other deep questions: Who gets to frame the African story? And who benefits when it’s told a certain way? Through institutions like the Market Photo Workshop and Javett Art Centre, he has created platforms where new narratives are possible. His fellow South African, Nwabisa Mayema advocate for women-led, regenerative business models. Raised in the Eastern Cape, her leadership is deeply grounded in matriarchal wisdom and what she calls “wild womanhood”, not the absence of fear, but the courage to act in spite of it. In her Dreaming in Color episode, she challenges Silicon Valley’s obsession with unicorns, advocating instead for “zebra” businesses: collaborative, community-rooted ventures that prioritise sustainability over scale.
Every episode echoes what’s already happening on the ground. These conversations honour oral traditions, local languages and the beauty of everyday life. They push back against erasure and remind us that storytelling is alive and very well.
Dreaming in Color offers stories that challenge, affirm and inspire. In a world that too often flattens African voices into stereotypes or silence, this series does the opposite: it listens with care and amplifies with respect. The series affirms that our stories, however complex, are worth hearing and worth holding onto.
Listen to Dreaming in Color, available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
- Episode 1: Semhar Araia, Eritrean-American activist and CEO founder
- Episode 2: Leila Ben Gacem, social entrepreneur and general director, Tunistoric (Tunisia)
- Episode 3: Legketho Makola, chief operations officer, The Market Theatre Foundation (South Africa)
- Episode 4: Tom Osborn, co-founder and CEO, Shamiri Institute (Kenya)
- Episode 5: Nwabisa Mayema, social entrepreneur (South Africa)
- Episode 6: Ore Disu, founding director, the Institute of the Museum of West African Art Insittute (Nigeria)
- Episode 7: Madji Sock, co-founder and president, Haskè Ventures (Senegal)
- Episode 8: Feven Tsehaye, founder, Chakka Origins (Ethiopia)
- Episode 9: Farah Mami, president, Tunisia Chapter of the Young Presidents’ Organization
Episode 10: Tijan Watt, co-founder and managing partner, Wuri Ventures (Senegal)