When I went to my home country of Kenya almost a year ago, I hopped on a small plane in Nairobi and flew to the Masai Mara. The famous wildlife conservation is what people first picture when they think of ‘Africa’… it’s filled with lions and giraffes and vast land that stretches for miles in the midst of fig trees. As I was flying, I thought of the orange-reddish hues of the ground, how the ground always felt like home and connected me no matter where I was. The color was unforgettable. It was then that Earthtone Media was born.
Some podcast production companies make original podcasts after having funding from investors, others mostly work with brands to produce content and others do a mixture of both. Earthtone is a different kind of production company. We produce original IP and content for brands, but we also invest in tangible products. For us that means making magazines and teaching courses.
Over the years, I have had a deep yearning for physical media. While I love the possibility of podcasts and how they can often make you ~feel~ like you’re talking to your friends in a room, nothing compares to the real thing. I found that especially in the last few years, I’ve been craving more events, live courses and physical products that can bring me closer to the people around me. This is the gap I’d like Earthtone Media to fill.
The first way we are doing this is through our magazine DIASPORA. The print zine, which came out in December of 2023, is a co-creation with my creative partner Ashley Edokpayi. The mission is to bring together stories from the past, present and future of the African diaspora. We were able to get five inaugural sponsors and sell almost half of what we printed within the first month. We also had a party in Brooklyn, NY to celebrate the launch, which we consider a monumental success.
Earthtones second physical venture will be to release a podcast course. We want to create a community where people across the globe have the tools they need to make their next great narrative into a podcast. Our aim is to first work with people connected to or in Africa since our core audience is the African diaspora. By teaching, Earthtone hopes to create a kind of production company where we not only make great shows or magazines, but we help foster the learnings of the next generation of media creators.
