Podcast Listening Challenge Week 1
Its a new decade and with it comes new challenges, new goals and a new mindset. I’m an avid fan of podcasts, not only to my benefit but also to my detriment because I miss so much mainstream information that is on radio because I never tune into radio unless I’m in someone else’s car.
I have decided to challenge myself to listen to a new podcast every week for a year and then write about it. My current podcast schedule consists of the Joe Budden Podcast (2hours plus run time), Brilliant Idiots (1.30hr to 2 hours run time) and the occasional Joe Rogan Experience. This is a weekly schedule of almost 6 hours of podcasting and now I have added more content to this. It should be interesting, eye opening, painful, rewarding and more.
I’m a fan of Mashudu Modau and what he’s doing with the Lutcha Network so I decided to look there for startups to listen to. There is a vast library of Podcasts that touch on different topics and from different parts of the African continent. I decided that I will only pick podcasts that have more than 20 episodes because its not fair to critique a podcast that is still starting because the hosts are still learning their craft and they may decide to shelve the podcast after 10 episodes. Imagine I enjoy the podcast but I can never listen to it again, that would be torture.
On the Lutcha network I went through their podcast library and started analyzing the podcasts till i settled on No Hidden Agenda Podcast . This one is about Hip Hop so it was just within my realm of knowledge and expertise. I picked Episode 52 which is titled “Dope and Awards”.
The Podcast starts and you can clearly see that the guys hosting are all friends, the Podcast starts with unstructured conversation that only friends would understand and therefore a listener would be left outside whilst hearing all these inside jokes. The 1st 20 minutes had me questioning my choice of podcast because I was like “what the hell is going on?”. This was a gentle reminder of the difference between Podcasts and Radio, radio is made to have structure and every minute has to be accounted for, whereas podcasts can have rambling that makes absolutely no sense at all. Not only can this be annoying but it also makes the medium exciting because it is not as manufactured as radio.
On the No Hidden Agenda Podcast I felt this for those 20 minutes and then they started discussing the SAMA awards and the judging criteria. Initially I wasn't sure who the host was but it eventually became clear because Mahoota started “Podding”!! He was controversial and started asking all the right questions about the criteria that the SAHHA (SA Hip Hop Awards) are judged. It was a compelling argument by Mahoota and maybe his cohosts have industry relationships so they couldn’t go all out on the slander and hence they played it safe, even though they didn't agree with Mahoota.
The show also discussed the scourge of DJs that just play all I do is win when they at the club. This is a real problem that needs to stop. Overall the podcast was a good listen and i’d love to hear the co-hosts provide more opinions and arguments that counter Mahoota because he is definitely the star of the pod. Would I listen again, definitely. There is a good product there and I love to hear what they do with a big celebrity host and the kinds of questions that they ask. Hopefully they will introduce video on Youtube and start giving out snippets because the audience loves hot-takes and bite sized quantities of content to get theme enthused about the product.
Week one done, its on to the next Podcast!!
