Recently, social media has been agog with video clips from Nigerian podcast hosts and guests making controversial statements and Twitter users declaring that there is a podcast pandemic. As someone who spent a total of 38,655 minutes listening to mostly Nigerian podcasts in 2022, that assertion has bothered me for weeks. First of all, what we are witnessing isn’t a podcast pandemic. Even if the more appropriate term — podcast epidemic is used, it is still a false statement. An epidemic is an increase in the occurrence of something within a particular area while a pandemic is an increase in occurrence of something that involves a wider spread, usually an entire country or across the world.
Podcasting in Nigeria is still a growing art form. It is not as mainstream as radio or TV so it is rather ironic that Twitter users are complaining about its ubiquity. Popularity on Twitter does not mean popularity everywhere. Only a handful of Nigerian podcasts have the resources to make visual content for social media. And even then, a snippet of a longer conversation is not enough to offer a definitive take. It is important that podcast content is not policed at this point where it’s still in its nascent stages. Particularly, when a lot of the current offerings are devised for a niche audience. For Nigerian podcasts to thrive as they potentially can, we need to allow more experimentation and the facilitation of an ideas marketplace.
Today, Afrobeats and Nollywood are two of Nigeria’s finest exports. How many Nigerian songs and Nollywood movies were made during their respective early stages? A lot. Nollywood veteran, Genevieve Nnaji, and Nigerian football legend, Jay Jay Okocha released music back in the day. I doubt that if we policed what could be sung or what genre of movies made it to our TV screens, Nigerian music and Nollywood would be as ubiquitous as they are today. According to this article by Podnews, as of Feb 10, 2023, there were 496,076 podcasts which had posted a new episode in the last 90 days. What percentage of that do Nigerian podcasts constitute? To eventually go mainstream, even in Nigeria, it is pertinent that there are many more consistent podcasts. To have great podcasts, we have to be willing to entertain a large quantity of not-so-great podcasts first. The quality of their content will improve as time passes. One of the forerunners of Nigerian podcasting, Loose Talk Podcast, released over 100 podcast episodes in its first 3 years of existence. The more episodes they put out, the more their content got better. The biggest podcast in the country right now, I Said What I Said, in their nascent stage, spoke about sex and relationship dynamics too. If we policed what they could or could not say into podcast mics, I doubt that they would have lived to inspire a host of Nigerian pop culture podcasts today.
In October 2022, thirteen African podcasts were recipients of the Spotify Africa Podcast Fund. Only three Nigerian podcasts made the list: I Said What I Said, Tea With Tay Podcast, and F&S Uncensored. “The recipients of the fund are independent emerging podcasters with growing audiences. We focused on supporting podcasts that showcase a range of voices, formats, languages, and content from hosts of all genders. Our goal is to help platform African creators on a global scale and shift the historically restrictive view of stories about the continent”, Spotify said. For other platforms to recognise and invest in more Nigerian podcasts, there has to be more dedicated podcasters with unique and consistent podcasts.
Video podcasts are another subject of concern. Video versions of podcasts are not new to the Nigerian podcasting space. As early as 2017, Loose Talk Podcast had started recording video format of some of their podcast episodes and uploading them separately on YouTube. Fans could watch the hosts record podcast episodes in real time on Instagram Live. Now, with the advent of TikTok and its proven ability to take videos far across borders, most Nigerian podcasters are embracing the idea of video recordings of entire podcast episodes or short video clips for Instagram Reels. The nomenclature of video podcasts is still a debate amongst podcasters and listeners. Podcast purists argue that podcasts uploaded to YouTube are not podcasts because YouTube does not support RSS feed integration, a tool that is integral to podcast distribution. In my opinion, most ‘podcasts’ on YouTube should be called talk shows but that is a story for another day.
As an avid podcast listener, I recommend that podcasters and podcast networks look away from making more pop culture themed podcasts and more of the same kind of podcasts. They should explore making other kinds of podcasts like investigative, documentary, narrative, and storytelling podcasts. Nigerian adaptations of popular True Crime podcasts like Serial, Music podcasts like Switched On Pop, Relationships podcasts like Modern Love, Documentary podcasts like The Opportunist, and tech podcasts like Waveform, will definitely be fun to listen to.
Some unique Nigerian podcasts exploring unique themes of podcasting are:
4th Republic
A non-partisan political podcast that documents and contextualizes Nigerian political events post 1999. It also profiles, interviews aspirants contesting for political positions, and provides audio briefings of its weekly political newsletter— Stomach Infrastructure.
The Dirty Lie Podcast
A history podcast that mixes extensive historical research, dry humor, and ‘two facts and lie’ to set the tone for episodes that examine moments in history that are stranger than fiction.
It Happened In Nigeria
A narrative storytelling podcast by Voix Collective that dramatizes Nigerian stories that changed people, told by the people they changed. The podcast features the use of sound design to completely immerse the listener in the world of the storyteller.
A Music In Time
A music podcast that breaks down impactful Nigerian music albums and chronicles the journey of Nigerian artistes, discussing what makes the albums great and offering context to songs by the artistes themselves.
Nigerian American
This podcast highlights interesting stories and experiences of international migrants of Nigerian descent. It also takes a storytelling route to explore a range of topics about identity, culture, business, politics, music, etc. in a very unique way.
The Open Africa Podcast
On this podcast, three qualified hosts sit to have honest conversations about finance, technology, and start-ups across Africa. These conversations provide a balanced mix of humor and wit to provide in-depth analysis of our fintech ecosystem.
Video clips from podcast episodes about relationships and sex are more likely to go viral on social media simply because these are the kind of topics that sell on the internet. Make no mistake, they are guaranteed to generate reactions. Social media managers and bloggers know this. These topics will not go away because they are what young people enjoy discussing. It is culture. However, these are topics that require little to no expert qualifications to hold an opinion about. People are different. We can not all draw the same conclusions from different personal experiences. More importantly, the onus is on the consumer to find, consume, and share content that they enjoy and not to constantly amplify content that they deem unpleasant.
Ekpenyong Ekpenyong is a Nigerian writer who has keen interests in Nigerian pop culture, podcasts, and ethnomusicology.