Listen To Your Footsteps is a podcast in which the host, Kojo Baffoe, delves into the journeys and lessons learned by Africans across various fields including art, culture, music, design, media, advertising, and business.
The Listen To Your Footsteps is a podcast in which the host, Kojo Baffoe, delves into the journeys and lessons learned by Africans across various fields including art, culture, music, design, media, advertising, and business.
These insightful conversations offer a treasure trove of takeaways for listeners on a wide range of topics including parenting, craft, relationships, entrepreneurship, and life experiences.
The podcast provides a platform for unique perspectives and stories through thought-provoking discussions, practical advice, relatable experiences and valuable insights as Kojo's interview style fosters in-depth conversations that leave a lasting impression, provides valuable guidance, and fosters a sense of community.
In this episode, Kojo sits down with acclaimed filmmaker, Sifiso Khanyile, to explore his deep love for storytelling and archival research.
Khanyile discusses his journey from founding and leaving the South African rock group BLK JKS, his eventual shift into documentary filmmaking and what sparked the obsession with digging deep into history, culture, and memory.
He talks about his favourite rabbit holes, how he goes about unearthing the stories of our past and how these influence the present and future.
Sifiso lives by the maxim ‘everything is propaganda’ and lets that guide him when engaging with information, whether it is archival or contemporary.
He shares his experiences with audio-visual archives, the importance of perception and the lens through which he engages with archives and history to ensure that he takes into consideration and sees beyond the biases, the value of being naturally curiosity, the role of music and books as tools that help him resolve life experiences, the inspiration he finds in old papers and collecting old records, and how spatial politics influences his work.
Khanyile unpacks the steps and missteps he has taken along the way, including dropping out of university, quitting his job, finding and creating film, working in television production, the difficulties – personal and otherwise – of directing commercials, and the doors that his films have opened for him.
Khanyile also opens up about the challenges of raising children with new perspectives and the existential questions he faced after becoming a father.