A radio presenter is more than just a voice in the ether. In those intonations and inflections you get to know so well, in those catchphrases that work their way into your vocabulary, a radio presenter transcends the boundaries of the medium to become something close to your heart and mind. A friend.
If you’re lucky – “First-time caller, Kieno!” – you may even get a chance to speak to them, to make your own voice heard on air. But more than anything, a radio presenter is proof that dreams do come true.
For Kieno Kammies, who rides the early morning airwaves on 567 Cape Talk, radio was a way out of a little suburb called Elsies River, on the Cape Flats.
He dreamed in small steps at a time, of crossing the bridge into Parow, then crossing the freeway, then heading into the wild yonder of the mountain and the infinite ocean. His first job in the exciting world of media was as a runner for Reuters, a general dogsbody, a messenger and a maker of coffee.
But he made good coffee, he says, and that valuable skill allowed him to stick around and become a soundman and a cameraman at the SABC, where, one day, just for a laugh, he made a voice tape.
He was offered a weekend slot on Radio Good Hope, and after his first show, a fellow presenter called to tell him he was terrible and wouldn’t make it in the medium. But he stuck around.
“There are dots all over the place,” says Kieno, today one of the warmest and best-liked presenters on air. “You just need to start connecting them.”
When he’s not on air, he runs a business consultancy that aims to improve EQ, or Emotional Quotient, in the workplace. “I’m a capitalist with a social conscience,” he tells Ruda in this eye-and-ear-opening interview. “We should all be trying to make a difference in other people’s lives.”
Transcript:
R: Hello, and a very warm welcome, once again, to the Change Exchange, where my guest today is Kieno Kammies. More used to being on radio, hey?
K: Absolutely, absolutely. But what a pleasure to be interviewed by you, by the way.
R: Thank you.
K: I used to watch you each and every Sunday, but just great to be here.
R: If you call me Tannie, this is the end of it.
K: Ek sal dit nooit doen nie, Tannie. I mean sorry, Ruda. Jinne!
R: Kieno, you grew up on the Cape Flats. Sketch a picture?
K: I grew up in a place called Elsie’s River. It’s a bit like Mannenberg, Bonteheuwel … It’s gang-infested … The kids who grew up in these areas don’t have much in the way of a future, or an horison ahead of them that they can look at and go, ‘hey, that’s what I want to achieve’. And having said that, though, I know a lot of successful people from Elsie’s River who have had good influences in their lives. But genuinely speaking, the area – even if you go back there today – you still find kids, running around with very, very little in the way of a future.
R: So what made the difference for you? What made you think ‘I can go beyond this’?
K: Well, I think my parents. My mom was at home most of the time, my dad was working his hindy off just to put food on the table, and my mother as well, but my mom was always the one who interacted with us mostly.
R: Big family?
K: No, four of us. Just myself, my mom, my dad and my sister Natalie. And I used to dream quite a lot. Overactive imagination, along with my ADD and everything else, and my mother and my father never said to me you can never do that. My mother always said dream, and follow your dreams. We used to take drives through Sea Point when we still couldn’t live there, we used to drive through Bishopscourt when we couldn’t live there and I used to say to my mom: “I’m going to get a house here one day.” And I still can’t afford to live in Bishopscourt, but the country has changed. And I remember my dad saying he doesn’t think that the country will ever change while he is alive, but my mom retorted: “No, no, no. We can. It’s the children who can do it for us.” And it’s that sort of positive reinforcement of my ideas and my dreams that made me look further than Halt road, which is the main road in Elsie’s River. And maybe think across the bridge to Parow, and then further than Parow and increase my horison and what I believed I can do.
R: So did the ’94 changeover change your life, personally?
K: Well, I was … I played an integral part … No I didn’t … I wasn’t part of CODESA, I wasn’t part of any of those things, but I was in the media at the time. A man by the name of Jimmy Matthews who now is the CEO of the SABC – we won’t say much about that particular job right now, but …
R: Let’s not go there.
K: Let’s not even go there. But I can tell you Jimmy was a great influence in my life, I remember after I matriculated I took a year of – I was thinking about a year off – my parents allowed me to do that to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. And I watched a bit of The Bold and the Beautiful. So between The Bold and the Beautiful and reading my dad’s newspapers I looked at this thing, going: “This must be very interesting, interviewing all these people.” And I made a press pass – my own little press pass, and went into some ANC event. I met Jimmy Matthews there. And Jimmy said to me: “Why don’t you come to Reuters.” Because that’s where he worked at the time. And I went to Reuters – long story short – I made coffee for them for about six, seven months. I figured out how cameras work, video work, sound. And I ended up doing sound and I became a runner. So by the time we got to Mandela being released etc., I was a sound man and a runner, a tape runner. So I was there when everything was unfolding. I was holding a microphone when Mandela became president and I sat two metres away from him with this boom mic, looking at this man and just being absolutely amazed. When they were standing on the steps of parliament, I was there with a little Nikon FM camera taking photos that I still have … So yes, in terms of the changeover experience, it’s been phenomenal for me.
R: Did you realise at the time … coming from the background of “we cannot do that, we cannot do that, we can’t live there, we can’t do that job” … Did you realise at the time that those restrictions were just suddenly … In one swoop … They fell away?
K: Not really. We still have to go back home. You still have to live in your area and go back to your neighbourhood where you only saw people who looked like you. I think the realisation and the appreciation of what actually changed after 1994 really happened once I got my own place and I moved out and my circle of friends started expanding. I was just excited that this guy – Nelson Mandela – was released and president of a country and I don’t think I thought as deeply as ‘Hey, what’s the paradigm shift for the country going to be’, ‘what’s the actual experiential shift going to be for the country’ at that time. I don’t think I did.
R: How did you get into radio?
K: Ja … I was a SABC cameraman at Sea Point, at the Sea Point offices, and I used to run down to the second floor where Good Hope FM broadcasted from. And there was a guy called Graham White, the vanilla thriller, I remember that. And I used to sit with Graham, and as I did with Reuters, I sat around, made coffee … Then he allowed me to push a couple of buttons on the desk, and eventually he could take long coffee breaks because I was quite proficient in mixing the music. And then one day Graham said to me: “Why don’t you try and do a voice tape?” Because I always pretended to be on radio and he used to come in and listen to me. And he said: “You should do a voice tape.” And we did – we went downstairs to the studio – the basement of the SABC, and on quarter inch we used to edit, we used to … You know, when you couldn’t see stuff like you can on all the fancy equipment that they’ve got these days. And we edited a voice piece for me, we handed it over, and I think it was Randall Abrahams at the time, who was stand-in programme manager at Good Hope FM … he said: “Listen, how would you like a weekend slot?” And then they offered me a weekend slot.
R: Do you remember the first time you actually sat at the microphone and this was your show, now?
K: Ja. I was scared and I can’t use that word follows scared, but I was very scared. And I remember Mark Gillman at the time, phoning in, off air, after I did my first link. And he said: “You sound S H I T. You’re not going to make it long in radio.” But he was always like that. He said that to me. But I’m happy to say that I think collectively I’ve been in radio longer than he’s been. So I remember that first time, I was very, very scared. But once again – with mom’s support and dad’s support and the family and a couple of people … The four people who listened to me, they started building my confidence and I just moved on from there.
R: But it sounds as if the lesson from that is get out there and start. Even if it is by making coffee?
K: Do it. Exactly. It’s the same in business as well. You know, people sit and hanna hanna about their future, and they make plans and they draw up five page documents about their future … Your future can only happen once you take the first step. Your future can only happen once you start living what you want to be. And that’s what I’ve learned. I didn’t know when I made coffee that any of these things were going to happen. In retrospect, like old Steve Jobs says, there are dots all over the place. Eventually you start connecting them. You just need to put your foot in the door and don’t go in with huge expectations. Show people the right attitude, the right aptitude to be able to do it, and you will progress from there. And I think that’s a very important lesson, and I say that to students when I talk to them at university or I just chat to young people, generally speaking … Come out and they want a R60K a month salary and they want to become managing director. You can if you start your own business – I’m not saying you can’t do that – but you’ll be part of the 0.002%.
R: And it probably won’t be on day 1.
K: It won’t be on day 1. You have to work from the ground up.
R: Ja.
K: A very good friend of mine is Jonathan Ackerman – Raymond Ackerman’s son. And he said to me, he was down here, his dad sent him into the things at Belville, the Pick ‘n Pay in Belville and he had to pack the shelves and work his way up and had to get to understand what life in a retail store was about. And that’s the sort of thing I would encourage people to do – even if your parents have a lot of money, it’s not use partying, partying, partying and taking over the business at the end. If you start from the ground up, you just gain so much and it also helps build your EQ. Because I don’t believe that IQ is necessarily the most important thing in the world. I think it’s that emotional quotient that’s very important at the end of the day, it’s very important for people to have.
R: You now have your own company, which tries to enhance this in companies?
K: Yes, it’s a strategy business and people try and complicate strategy, and my firm belief is that strategy is about understanding people and understanding their needs, delivering on those particular needs cleverly, so you can beneficiate yourself … They call that sort of thing a business. So what I do in the business is two things. We look at people strategies in business – it sounds fancy, but it’s not really. Normally you get HR departments that look at your CV and they go, okay, that’s my CV, this is the job … Do they match? Great, you’ve got the job! But what they don’t do is find out more about the people that they interview. You’ve got to understand what people’s hierarchical value systems are. If you understand what their specific … What makes them tick, it will help you in integrating them into the business, but it will also help you to incentivise them at a later stage. Because people have different things – if you’re a single mom and you dote over your child … When it’s your child’s birthday and you know that the kid loves X Y Z, you get them something with a handwritten note as the manager. CEOs can’t necessarily do that. When you’re in power of the management, to be able to deal with people at a personal level … It’s not always the money. Money is important, but building emotional connections with people in the workplace, understanding them, understanding that people also want to … They’ve got trajectories in life, they want to get somewhere … They want to feel appreciated … How do you actually do that within the business space? So we work on that, and then we also do turnarounds. I went to … I just took myself for a little course, it’s nothing fancy, at Harvard, which is a management consulting course, just to see what the actual structure was for it. And then came back here and took that particular structure and turned it on its head, and so what we do, from a management consulting point of view is to help businesses turnaround, for example we bring on people who have retired, but have the IP as the consultants. That’s the thinking behind that part of the business. So ja.
R: What made you decide to start this business? You’re a radio person?
K: My passion for entrepreneurship has been there forever. I always wanted to start my own business. And the opportunity availed itself probably about three, four years ago to do some communication strategy work, which I did. And then I thought hey, I actually like this … I deal with people, I can change the way people relate to each other, put the right processes in place … I don’t do all these business-speak stuff, but I really started enjoying it and then sort myself, where to from here? What do I need to do to empower myself to take this business further and build it? And make sure that I offer a unique value proposition, as they call it.
R: What did the American experience do to you? How did it … Did it change you? Did it change your view of the world?
K: I sat in the course and I listened to it, and I questioned a lot of what they did in terms of process, because my thinking went contrary to some of the things they said we should do on the course. Like management consultants would go in and lip service generally speaking is paid to what the people is actually saying on the ground. And I’m going hold on, you just need a case study where consultants went in and they spoke to senior management and the board and lower level management and very little interaction with staff on the ground, the people who actually …
R: Do the job?
K: Isn’t that an important part of it? So I looked at how they went about doing things and looked at what my personal experience has been and said hold on, I’m sure one can do this better. But on the other hand, there were phenomenal tools that they had that could help one almost contextualise a particular situation and then turn it around. And then there’s the networking side, which to me is the most important capital in the world. Something you’ll know very well … You network with people, you build genuine relationships, which I have, and you just … As they say … Make your circle bigger. And once again, those dots get connected later on in life. So for me it was a great experience in terms of just looking at how they think in the United States when it comes to business, business processes et cetera, but then also the exposure to the people and the experiences that they shared with me opened my mind as well.
R: And maybe the understanding that even though we are at the bottom of Africa, some of my ideas are just as good, or better, than theirs? That must have been quite …
K: That is so true. And today you talk to people who are professors, deans, and you share your ideas with them and they’re going: “Wow!”
R: So trust yourself?
K: Trust yourself and …
R: And your instinct.
K: And just be true to who you are at the end of the day. Every bit of experience that you get on a daily basis increases the … How does one put this properly? I’m just trying to think. When you live life, you don’t always see it as part of the ammunition that you can take forward and use later. Everything we do, if we just listen and experience … We can actually use that to our own benefit and help other people improve themselves, based on our experiences as well.
R: You do a lot of charity work, both on radio, and in your personal life. What motivates that?
K: Well, Ruda, it’s … I like to stand up for the underdog. There are people who have great potential and they don’t realise it. There are people who are downtrodden and everybody else just moves on with their lives. Because I was at one stage also growing up in the Flats in Elsie’s River where there are loads of gangs around us, and if it weren’t for people who showed faith in me and helped me get a leg up, then I wouldn’t be where I am today. So I look at my experience and I go how can I be a positive influence on people’s lives. How can I use the platform that I’m on to try and change people, give people generally a paradigm shift to the way they look at things, or assist someone who really needs that assistance, and I firmly believe in paying it forward. So if we help you, you need to go out and help someone else. I do it because I’m not Mother Teresa, I’m a capitalist. I’m a capitalist with a social conscience. I think there’s probably, not exactly Bernie Sanders, but I’m a capitalist with a social conscience. I believe that one … You can enrich yourself, but at the same time you should be trying to make a difference in other people’s lives, so that they too can see the path ahead of them.
R: Plans, dreams, professionally?
K: I could say run this multi, or international consultancy, but we’ll see where that goes. I’m not going to think too far ahead. I can dream about those sort of things. Professionally I’d like to see the business stand on its own, take on the Banes of this world and the other big consultancies, but really bring EQ into the equation when it comes to the type of consulting that we do. I’d like to own my own media house one day as well. I believe media is very important, it’s …
R: Which media?
K: Well, for me digital media is important. It’s a big thing out there, it’s just how you use it. So digital media and broadcast media. If I could buy my own radio group, I would buy it. I mean, if I could buy media tomorrow, I would buy it. Radio is powerful, radio is immediate. It’s something I know intimately and I don’t want to dabble in things that I know too little about, so …
R: Can I ask you, when was the first time you realised how powerful radio is? I know that from my own experience on television, how powerful broadcasting is. People respond, people react. And with radio, when you tell a story, they phone in – immediately. And they say: “How can I help this child?” When was the first time you realised that?
K: I think just looking at the outpouring of emotion with September 11th, if one just looks at a big, big media event internationally. I was on air on Cape Talk in the afternoon. I was watching CNN. I saw one of the towers alight. We were the first radio show to break the news on 9/11. The very first one. Our management team was still sitting and doing whatever managers do, whatever that might be, in the office. And I said we have to go live with this. We still hadn’t known what happened. But they said it’s going to cost us, and if I’d have to pay for it – and I had no money at the time, trust me – but I said I’ll pay for it and it went live and the managers came out after they were told that this is happening, and I said …
R: You mean you took the feed …
K: We took the feed from CNN, did it live on air.
R: Put it on air.
K: We put it live on air. And then we started chasing down journalists, et cetera, et cetera. But then I said if you know anybody in America, in New York, give us a call. And I think the lady’s name was Rose. And I think Rose called into the show, and she said: “My friend Ivy lives opposite the World Trade Center.” By that time all the lines weren’t down yet, so we managed to get hold of Ivy Lapen, and I remember her saying: “I can hear planes flying over.” There were military jets at the time. I’m getting goosebumps just thinking about it. And she says: “Kieno, I’m looking out of the window. Oh my God – people are jumping. People are jumping.” And then she was close to crying, because here kids were on the other side of Manhattan. So that’s the one, very powerful … And I mean, if you didn’t have the jacket on, you would see all my goosebumps. But it was the first time. But then, on a regular basis, almost … But I think the one that hits home – manager at the Airports Company of South Africa … Mentioned something to me once. I saw this guy, sitting outside the 7/11, and he had this kid, the was well-dressed, neat. And he asked me for money and I said no, because I thought he was another beggar. But when I saw the kid I went back and I said why is this kid outside, and he explained that he’d fallen on hard times and he’s just looking for R20 or R40 so him and his kid can have a place to sleep that night. I then brought the guy on air with me, and people opened up their hearts. A guy phoned in, and offered an apartment for them to use as long as they want. Offered the guy a job. People were willing to put money in to care for the kid – man, there are good people out there! The fires in the deep South – we raised about R4 million between our two stations – KFM and Cape Talk – for the people who had fallen on hard times as a result of the fire. But I think the money was actually raised for the fire-fighters, actually – let me not get that wrong. The money was raised for the fire-fighters who were doing a very good job at the time.
R: So you absolutely, passionately believe in the power of this instrument that you have in your hand?
K: Yes, I do. I do. It’s the one … Listen, I don’t like getting up early in the morning, but it’s the one thing that makes me get up and want to go to work and do the show. Ruda, you know, we are surrounded by negative news. Number One and Nkandla, and whatever else he is involved in, but we can’t keep talking about that … We have to talk about it and we need to shine the light on corruption and self-serving behaviour in the country, right? We have to do that, but we also need to shine a light on people who actually, I think, make the majority of this country. People just want to be there and live their lives and assist other people where they can …
R: I often say, if you have a donut, don’t stare at the hole. Enjoy the donut!
K: Exactly – well said! Absolutely well said.
R: Tell me about … You have two sons?
K: Yes, Cameron and Tyler.
R: How did that change your life?
K: Wow! You know, as I said, I’ve been in radio for almost 22 years – somewhere around there, I can’t count that well. And initially it was about going to this club, doing a bit of DJ-ing there, honing in the cash and enjoying that, jolling. You don’t think further than the next weekend, but when you start having kids it’s a 180. You end up going okay, now I have to look after this little thing. I’ve got to make sure they’ve got a future. You asked me why I started the businesses – part of that is to make sure that …
R: Long term.
K: That when the radio gig ends, there’s something else that I have, but I also have a legacy that I can leave for them. So it’s very important for me to do that. You become more responsible, you don’t worry about yourself as much, you worry about them. And ja, it makes a little more selfless, which is a good thing for people in our industry where everything tends to evolve around them and them only, because you’re sitting in front of a TV, you’re sitting in front of a microphone and everybody just goes gaga about you. For you, people ask me: “You must have a lekker job, hey. What’s your most important job that you do?” And I say the most important job is being a dad. That is the most important job – I happen to be a dad with a cool job that just happens to be on radio, so …
R: What do you want to teach them?
K: I want to teach them that they must follow their hearts. Obviously, I say follow your heart – I don’t say go and smoke ganja. I think you need to obviously lead them down the path, but like my parents did for me, I want to allow them to dream and I want to allow them to follow the path that they want to follow. No judgement in the sense of oh no, you should become a doctor or … My personal opinion on a university degree is … I don’t know if I should say it, but depending if you want to become a rocket scientist, a university degree is a good thing, but I think kids learn more when they leave matric, they go out, experience the world … Make a couple of mistakes as long as they’re not really expensive ones or ones that last you for the rest of your life. What I’d like for them is to be able to be comfortable and passionate about what they do and how they live their lives. And it’s got to be their own passion, not mine or anybody else’s that’s been engraved in them. That’s what I’d like for them.
R: And what we always end the show with, is your home. What’s your home like? When did you buy it? How long ago and why? What sold it to you?
K: I have a couple of homes. The home I live in at the moment is in a place called Sunningdale, which is the Blouberg area. I like it because it’s a suburban home. It’s got a garden and that’s me … I wasn’t really the picket fence type dude – we still don’t have a picket fence, but it’s got a lovely space. It’s got a garden, it’s lekker gesellig, soos hulle in Afrikaans sê. You can sit and you can braai and I’ve got a pizza oven and what I love about the home is that you can bring people in there and you can have a really good time, and you can connect with the people you care about.
R: You lived in Johannesburg for about ten years and you say you don’t miss it one minute?
K: Okay, maybe when I say I don’t miss it one minute … I prefer Cape Town. I still like the vibe of Jo’burg, when you go there and you walk in Rosebank or Soweto or wherever you are, you know you’re in Jo’burg as opposed to Slaapstad. I prefer Cape Town now, you talk about the kids, just from a lifestyle point of view. Things work in the city. Every year, when it rains, I don’t have to all of a sudden hop into William Nicol from Craighall Park 40 minutes earlier because I know the lights aren’t going to work. My 4×4 is used to actually go 4×4-ing and camping, and not trying to dodge potholes. Jo’burg’s not that bad. I love the lifestyle in Cape Town, but I still have very … My best friends, my close friends, closest relationships were built in Johannesburg, because I think people are more genuine in Jo’burg.
R: I think people are more open, because we are used to meeting people all the time.
K: Yes, more cosmopolitan as well, I enjoy that about Johannesburg. But in terms of just being back and having a relaxed life, Cape Town is it for me. I go to Jo’burg in any case to do business and other stuff.
R: What makes a house a home?
K: I think it’s the laughter inside the home and it’s the relationships inside the home. That to me … You could live in a pondok, and if you’ve got the right people around you … If you’ve got the right relationships and you get the parents like we had that pushed us in the right … That makes it a home. It’s not about bricks and mortar – of course it’s lekker if you’ve got an extra room and you’ve got a braai space, et cetera, et cetera, but you can have a really bad time in a big house, as opposed to having a really good time in a small home, as a juxtaposition if I may. So ja …
R: Is there some physical thing that you take with you? A carpet that you really love, a painting, a something?
K: My PlayStation Mini!
R: Okay …
K: I love PlayStation, okay? At 42, I still play. Tiger Woods’ Golf is still my favourite, and a couple of shooting games as well. But I also have a huge recliner, a massive leather recliner which is like a bed. And I’ve fallen asleep on there more times than I care to admit.
R: That’s dad’s place,
K: Dad’s place. That’s my chair, and it’s big. Two people can fit in there. I think Khulubuse could fit in there on his own, but two people, generally speaking, could fit in there and that is my pride and joy. I don’t do too many paintings – you leave that up to the missus, all that other fancy stuff. Ja, that and my NutriBullet. That’s about it if I would take anything anywhere. I need to be able to make milkshakes and smoothies and whatever, and I need to be able to relax as well. So ja, those are … Let’s not forget the PlayStation.
R: Kieno, thanks so much for joining us today, and all of the very, very best. I hope your business flourishes.
K: I hope so too! For my kids’ sake. But thank you very much, Ruda, and I look forward to your moving down to Cape Town some time.
R: I have lived here, and I’m not coming back.
K: You don’t have to. Thank you very much.
R: All of the very best, see you next time.
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