Sol Phenduka and MacG host Africa’s No.1 podcast, “Podcast and Chill”. Picture: Instagram.
In a special episode of “Podcast and Chill”, co-hosts MacG, Sol Phenduka and Ghost lady had the tables turned on them.
The episode, which was taped before Christmas, dropped on Thursday, January 2.
During the episode, veteran radio presenter, David Mashabela interviewed the trio who reflected on the success of the year that has been.
Asked about future plans for the popular podcast, MacG responded: “I’ll speak for myself, I don’t know about the others, but we literally just take it episode by episode. Obviously we have a broader vision of what we want to do for the year, but we just try to top each episode as we go.”
During 2024, the “Podcast and Chill” team dropped between 130 to 150 episodes, keeping chillers (their fans) entertained at every turn.
Phenduka added: “For the first time now, I get to reflect on the guests. I think we do the interviews and then we move on to the next.”
He recalled the interview with South African football coach and former player, Benni McCarthy being a close favourite.
“You can’t say you have a favourite, maybe there might have been special moments, but interviewing Benny, that was amazing,” said Phenduka.
Another highlight for Phenduka was the interview with his childhood hero, Brian Baloy.
Meanwhile, MacG said that when he prepares for his interviews with guests, he “literally becomes the person for 24 hours before the show”.
“I become entrenched. When you’ve spent 24 hours researching this person and then you sit with them and do a dope episode and it comes out, after that, it feels like they have a part of you and you have a part of them.
“I can’t determine my favourite, I have the same feeling after every interview,” MacG shared.
Speaking about the pressure that comes with making sure that every episode is better than the last, Phenduka said: “There isn’t too much pressure ...
“You never really get rid of the nerves, but the pressure comes when we had to make sure we have moments where we laugh and are not flat, we are categorised as a comedy podcast and it just came by the nature of how we do things.”
Earlier this year MacG and Phenduka had the opportunity to take the podcast to Los Angeles for the BET Awards. The two spoke about the experience.
MacG said: “We have aspirations to grow so we hit up Viacom and sent through a proposal. They liked it. Our sponsor didn’t come through so we took money from the company to pay for the people that went there ...
“Personally, just being in America and seeing how things operate, how they take entertainment seriously, being in a world where we can appreciate and be like ‘wow, this is a level’ ... Those things inspired me.”
Phenduka chimed in that it reminded them that there is still a very long way to go despite being the biggest podcast in South Africa.
“It helped us stay grounded and aim for higher,” he said.
Watch the full podcast below.