The Might & Power of Gugulethu Nyatsumba’s Voice
A deep dive into what makes After School Is After School With Sis G.U one of the biggest podcasts in South Africa
In June 2021 popular youth radio station YFM announced the #BeTheNext talent search competition where the station was looking for the next great radio talent to join it’s stable. Gugulethu Nyatsumba entered the horserace hoping to fulfill a childhood dream of being a radio presenter but failed to even make it into the top 3 even though she had a strong social media following and a big YouTube channel. Mncedisi Sindane ultimately won the talent search but no one could have predicted that in less than a year, Nyastumba would be the host of one of the biggest podcasts in South Africa.
Just a short 2 months after the YFM competition ended, the first episode of After School Is After School with Sis G.U was uploaded onto podcast platforms and was well-received by not only Nyatsumba’s followers but also podcast listeners who did not previously know about Nyastumba from her social media or YouTube channel. Even from the first few episodes it was clear that the podcast would be a success, what was not cleat was how long that would take.
By February 2022, with just 6 episodes released, the podcast hit number 1 on the South Africa Spotify and Apple Podcasts charts. By April 2022 Nyastumba had reached 101 200 plays with 10 released episodes with an average of 6 200 listeners per episode. Since then, the podcast has remained one of the very few South African original podcasts to hold a consistent spot in the Top 10 charts of podcasts on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Nyatsumba’s recipe for success is a combination of natural talent, honing your skill and understanding the needs of an audience.
Dr. Kazier Nyatsumba and Mrs Gugulethu Nyatsumba are the directors of KMN Consulting and the parents of the online sensation. Dr. Nyatsumba started his working career as a journalist who quickly rose to editor of a local newspaper. He then transitioned from local journalism to corporate communications having held various high-level positions in major coprporates such as The Coca Cola Company South Africa and Anglo American as a public relations and communications executive. He is also an opinion writer on contemporary politics, the author of several fiction and biography books and a poet.
Mrs. Nyatsumba holds a BA Honours in Communication from the University of Johannesburg, a BA in Communication from the University of South Africa, a Diploma in Public Relations from the London Institute of Public Relations, a Diploma in Marketing from the Institute of Marketing Management and a National Diploma in Office Administration from the Tshwane University of Technology. She has worked her entire life as a professional communicator and currently serves a director of a communications consulting agency.
It is clear that Nyatsumba grew up in a family of skilled communicators who not only could communicate socially but had a professional skill set in that regard. Although Nyatsumba has not spoken openly about how her parents’ profession has impacted her ability to communicate with a broad audience it is clear from the way she is able to reach hundreds of thousands of people through the sheer power of her voice that she holds a natural talent or perhaps one borne from being raised by two professional communicators. Apart from what may seem like a natural communication talent, Nyatsumba has also worked very hard at being an effective communicator.
In January 2020, two short months before the Covid-19 lockdown started, Nyatsumba launched her YouTube channel called Uncomfortable Growth in which she hosted conversations about mental health, dating, being in your 20s, music and the regular vlogs. Unlike some other YouTubers, she could not hide behind makeup tutorials, vlogs or high-tech editing but even from the onset she could only just speak in front of the camera therefore she had to quickly learn how to navigate through a topic in a way that would capture a viewer for the entire duration of a video.
A stylistic maneuver that Nyatsumba employs is to use popular internet lingo which makes her seem relatable with her audience and pairing that with deep and often very complex conversations with the output being the feeling of just having a conversation with your friend over a glass of wine. She honed this ability on her YouTube channel and transferred it to how she delivers conversations on the podcast. Without the worries of having to be camera ready and presentable, the podcast allowed Nyatsumba to really focus on the conversation at hand which enhances the listening experience and is no wonder many listeners have gravitated towards her.
What might perhaps be the most important ingredient in the Nyatsumba handbook of how to build a successful podcast is her understanding of her target audience and delivering to them the conversations they want to hear. Millennials have been very successful in bringing forward a much needed conversation about metal health. Both on her YouTube channel and on the podcast Nyastumba has had open and vulnerable conversations about the state of her mental health and battle with depression. Because this is something many other people in her target audience battle with she has carved out a space where their experiences can be see and validated.
Nyatsumba also leans into another tension that not many content creators lean into while it is something most people in their 20s have to navigate around which is loving Jesus and Don Julio.
Her love for God and close relationship with Jesus comes through very strongly on the podcast, it is very clear that her faith is the main driver in her life and is the motivating force behind many of the thing she does and what she ultimately sees as her calling. This allows her to also speak to an audience of young people who want to exist in a modern liberal world but also carve out a faith relationship in a world that often tells us that it is impossible to do both. Nyatsumba is still able to enjoy being a young person with all that entails while also not compromising on what she considers to be her foundational Christian-based principles.
Listning to the podcast, there’s a way in which she is able to put into clear perspective very difficult, complex and life-altering changes that a lot of people in their 20s are going through. It is not only that she is able to talk about her life experiences but that she draws lessons from these experiences and shares this with an audience that is going through the same thing.
Her listeners know that when you tune into one of her solo episodes on podcast you will be met with an affirmation of where you are in your life, some advise on overcoming a depressive episode, an update on her celibacy journey, reflections on romantic loneliness and how much she loves tequila. Her ability to hold these tensions and be open and honest about them is perhaps the very reason why she has been able to birth one of the biggest podcasts in the country in less than a year — something that took years to do for big names such as Podcast and Chill with MacG and Wisdom and Wellness with Mpoomy Ledwaba.
It is without a doubt that Nyatsumba would not have been able to achieve this great success if she was not already well know on social media when she launched the podcast. By November 2021 she already had over 50 000 subscibers on YouTube, her twitter following was over 100 000 had a healthy following on Instagram. She was able to direct the traffic of these followers onto her podcast which may have contributed to it’s initial success but it is the other things that keep listeners coming back and keeping her on the charts.
After School Is After School with Sis G.U recently received a podcast grant given to a select number of podcasts across the African continent. The nod from Spotify the company along with how she has been able to capture a massive audience in a short space of time clearly makes her a frontrunner for one of the first podcasts that would be picked up as a Spotify Exclusive Podcast once the streaming service starts licensing podcasts in Africa.
For as long as she can remain consistent, vulnerable and authentic there is no reason why this podcast would not continue to be a success story going into the future. Nyatsumba has a firm grip on an audience that values her voice and is willing to reward her handsomely for it. This is her market to dominate for as long as her audience trusts her to reflect their realities and put the complexities of their lives into perspective.
