Before it was cool
Do I get points for being ahead of the curve when it comes to podcasts? Probably not but I am proud that I was able to create a podcast back in 2013 that was — at the time — the only podcast about henna. It was well received by the henna community but I’m not in Rogan territory here, not by any means!
The very first podcast I ever listened to was Marc Maron’s WTF and I LOOOOVED it. I wasn’t necessarily a fan of comedy but who doesn’t like a laugh. What I loved is how he talked about the process of comedy (and later other fields) with comedians, so unlike most celebrity interviews in mainstream media. I was contemplating my own process as an artist, and dating a musician who was doing the same; we talked about and studied and worked on creativity together a lot. On WTF I heard so many arguably famous and successful people talk about their process but also their struggles and failures. I admired Marc’s way of drawing out this information, digging deeper, finding connections and bringing so much out of his guests. I was very inspired by his model, and had a tiny little dream of having my own podcast.
Musician boyfriend of the time helped me get started on the audio technology side of things, told me what equipment to buy, and we researched how best to record and upload etc. It was a very very steep learning curve and I’m jealous of the people starting now where you can just log into a website, record your interview, and the rest is done for you. I have a certain satisfaction, like the person shaking their fist at the sky, that you should have seen it back when I was coming up in the biz! Anyway, Caught Red-Handed was launched as a podcast by henna artists, for henna artists, about henna artists, and it was a hit, even tho a lot of people didn’t know how to even access a podcast! I interviewed a ton of different artists, trying to be the Marc Maron of henna, and had a lot of special series like where I interviewed a bunch of different artists about bridal henna, or the series about different artists’ recipes.
It was a LOT of work, and the audio part of things was the most challenging. I started to lose steam at about 22 episodes and then there was that tough breakup with the musician boyfriend, and well, Caught Red-Handed faded away, but I missed it. My back catalog was there and people would reach out to me saying they found it by chance and loved the podcast, like kids wearing Ramone’s t-shirt unironically.
After Mektoub’s first workshop in Morocco, I decided that I might want to dust off the microphone and fire up the podcast machine again, and I’d have the help of my Mektoub teammates, Jenpa and Monique. The technology is WAY easier now and everyone knows what a podcast is and how to find it. So we have relaunched it and have a bunch of episodes in the pipeline. We are starting out with interviews of our 2022 workshop attendees because so many of them had really interesting backstories and experiences at the workshop. We have plans to branch out from there, so give us a listen, like, subscribe, follow, rate etc. and we will do our best not to disappoint your ears! It’s available whereever you get your podcasts, and you can also listen to it here: https://www.mektoubhenna.com/podcast
