If your blog were a forest, your favorite tree should not be the tallest or with the showiest flowers. It should be the one with the deepest roots, the post or episode where you first found your voice, shaky but honest, when you stopped copying others and began to sound like yourself. This idea is small and simple, yet for many African bloggers, podcasters, and vloggers, it’s dangerously easy to forget. We live in an age that measures worth in views, followers, and fast virality. But a forest doesn’t grow overnight, nor does a body of work that matters. If you are on the continent or scattered across the diaspora, if you started a blog because a story wouldn’t leave you or launched a podcast because a conversation had to be held, this is for you.
When you began, it might have been a lonely room, a slow internet connection, a borrowed laptop, or a phone with a battery that lasted ten minutes. You published a post or uploaded your first episode and felt a mix of terror and relief. That rawness, the awkward phrasing, the rambling anecdote, the sentence you’d later edit a hundred times, is not something to be ashamed of. It is the root system. Roots don’t look glamorous, but they do the real work. They anchor, nourish, and connect.
Many of us mistake the tallest trees, pages with viral spikes, flashy collaborations, perfect thumbnails for success. They are visible, yes, but often hollow. The quiet tree, the one with deep roots, is the one readers come back to on nights when they feel small. It’s where your early readers found themselves written down for the first time. It is where your voice took shape. That post could be the seed of a memoir, a theme for a future anthology, or the speech you’ll give when someone finally listens.
Your early work matters, even if it reads embarrassingly now, because it documents growth. Return to it and you’ll see how your thinking has matured. What looks naive now was once courageous. Those pieces show trajectory from imitation to identity. It also holds your audience. Viral posts give you attention; honest posts build trust. A single sincere piece has the power to create a community that stays through platform changes and algorithm shifts. Furthermore, it is repurposable. That essay, thread, or episode can become a chapter, a newsletter series, a podcast mini-series, or a short ebook. The tried-and-tested content is your catalog of ideas. Lastly, it resists erasure. In a world that sidelines African voices, the archive you build, even one imperfect post at a time, preserves perspectives, languages, and memories for future readers and historians.
You don’t need to be a household name to prove this point. Across Africa and among Africans in the diaspora, countless creators started with a shaky post or a quiet recording that later became a calling card. Take for example the Nigerian blogger KacheeTee, who started her journey with personal, relatable posts on fashion and lifestyle, which over time, cultivated a loyal community. Similarly, the work of OkayAfrica, an online publication dedicated to African culture, music, and politics, began with a modest blog that has since grown into a global platform, all built on the foundation of authentic storytelling.
A hobbyist who started writing about parenting found that her honest, sleepless night posts became the backbone of a parenting newsletter read by thousands. A podcaster who recorded interviews on a shoestring budget later used those conversations as the skeleton for a community led training series on storytelling. The pattern is the same: one honest seed, tended over time, grows into something that sustains both creator and community.
If you’ve been away, if life’s demands, adulting, side gigs, caring for family, have smothered your flame, the way back is not dramatic. It is intentional. Revisit, don’t erase, your early work. Open it and read it with curiosity, not contempt. Look for threads you still care about. Extract themes. What keeps appearing in your posts? Those recurring motifs are your brand, not the logo or SEO, but the subject matter you’re uniquely placed to explore. Repurpose ruthlessly. That old post can become three social posts, a 10 minute podcast, and a newsletter prompt. Leverage the formats technology offers. Make micro-commitments. If burnout is real (it is), promise only a 20-minute write or a 5-minute voice note per day. Small actions compound. Archive with intention. Make a folder called “Roots” and put your earliest proud pieces there. They’ll surprise you later. Build community, not just metrics. Reply to comments. Message the reader who left a long note. Those human ties are your canopy. Learn new tools carefully. New platforms, shiny features, and AI can help, but don’t chase every trend. Use tools that support your voice, not replace it.
Our stories travel. The young woman in Nairobi writing about negotiating space in her family home; the grandfather in Accra recounting how trade and migration reshaped his town; the student in London exploring dual identity, these voices stitch together a continental archive that challenges single narratives. When Africans in all our diversity commit to telling the stories only we can tell, we create currency for our histories, economies, and futures. You may feel you’ve outgrown blogging or podcasting. Perhaps you earned a different job, a new title, or simply moved into a season where the old projects no longer fit. That’s normal. Growth can mean change. But outgrowing the formats is not the same as outgrowing the impulse. Your early tree can become the first chapter of a memoir, the opening pages of a screenplay, or the raw material for a research paper. The archive of your small acts can feed new, larger work. Don’t discard the breadcrumbs.
We know this pattern: social feeds highlight polished peaks and hide the valleys. For a millennial creator, that creates a constant self-evaluation: am I good enough? Do I have the right angle? Will this be useful? Imposter syndrome thrives on comparison. A quick remedy, measure against your own past. Your early posts show where you began and how you have moved. That self comparison is kinder and, crucially, truer. Technology won’t save the story, but it expands the reach. Tools are multiplying: newsletters, audio platforms, micro-video, community apps, and yes, AI assisted drafting. Use them to amplify, not to replace, your voice. A single, honest post amplified across a newsletter, a short audio clip, and a thread can reach different listeners without demanding you be everywhere at once. Let your content work smarter, not you harder.
This is a small manifesto for the way back. Treasure the first tree. Publish for humans, not for algorithms. Make small promises to yourself and keep them. Turn old posts into new conversations. Protect the space where you felt brave enough to begin. Take five minutes right now. Open an early post. Read it aloud. If something in it still pulls at you, make a plan: one edit, one repurpose, one share. That single action is the watering can for your roots. Promise to return to your forest, even once a week.
Support another creator who’s also tired. Leave a comment, send a voice note, share an old post that mattered to you. Our forests are many and connected. The tree you planted when you were unsure is still there, its roots deeper than you remember. Tend it, tell the stories it shelters and let it remind you why you began. In a world that rushes toward the loudest signal, there is power in the patient growth of a rooted tree. And for African storytellers everywhere: the world needs your roots.
Promoting Africa's Emerging Voices