Who is Am

Amkelwa ‘Am’ Mbekeni-Kapanen is a broadcaster who has been a radio practitioner for almost two decades starting from her university days on a campus radio station (Radio Shimla) at the University of Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa.

She became enamoured with talk radio from early days and this love has taken her to the studios of Cape Town's premier talk station, Cape Talk 567, Bush Radio, one of the oldest community stations in South Africa, Radio Helsinki (Finland) and WBAI (NY) to name a few. For a number of years she has hosted interview-based talk shows focusing on a myriad of topics covering Arts and Culture, Human Rights and Gender Matters, as well as Labour Issues.

Amkelwa co-produced documentary content for the South African public broadcaster (SAfm) with ‘Beyond Xenophobia’ being one of the most noteworthy content ever relevant up to date. Her interest in retracing and reclaiming her cultural roots, lead her to become one of the co-founders of a film production company Iliso Films and Multimedia production, whose primary focus is to find and tell indigenous African stories by African people and unearth and preserve indigenous knowledge systems. Later on Amkelwa co-founded an audio production company Voxpop Africa Media, which produced audio content for radio and online, as well as audio based media strategies.

Throughout her career, she has been drawn to hosting various events, on various stages and platforms. Apart from having the gift of the gab, Amkelwa started her training on effective speaking as well as speech and drama as a youth through Trinity College, London, and has continued to do speaking engagements and voice work for radio and TV adverts and other programmes over the years.

Recently she was Director of Programming for the Helsinki African Film Festival (HAFF), a progressive initiative aimed at giving space and platform for African creative voices to be heard via the media of film for the purposes of telling African stories from an African perspective.

At Radio Helsinki she hosted and produced a weekly interview based talk show Foreign Matters - a show that took a look at the lives of Foreigners in Finland through a different lens.

Currently, Amkelwa is co-curator and presenter of Planet Earth Planet Rap - an international Hip-Hop radio operation. Planet Earth Planet Rap (PEPR) includes curating and presenting a weekly segment on Chuck D's And You Don't Stop! radio show on WBAI Pacifica (New York City), WEAA (Baltimore) and RAPstation as well numerous other syndications.

Amkelwa is the creator and co-founder of the Yibani Nathi program, in Helsinki-Finland. An initiative that supports adoptive families in creating and keeping a connection to South Africa, the culture, customs and traditions. Together with the families a feeling of ‘home away from home’ is created.

I and Am is Amkelwa’s latest offering.