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Moky Makura was born in Nigeria, educated in England and has lived in London, Johannesburg and Lagos. She has been a TV presenter, producer, author, publisher and a successful entrepreneur in her own right. She is currently the Executive Director of Africa No Filter, a donor collaborative focused on shifting the African narrative.

Moky started her media career as the African Anchor and field reporter for South Africa’s award-winning news and actuality show – Carte Blanche. She conceptualized, co-produced and presented a lifestyle TV series for the pan African pay TV channel MNet called “Living It”, which focused on the lifestyles of the African continent’s wealthy elite. She also played a lead role in the groundbreaking and popular MNet PanAfrican drama series Jacob’s Cross.

Her book Africa’s Greatest Entrepreneurs with a foreword written by Richard Branson, featured on the top 10 best-selling business books in South Africa when it launched. Moky has since compiled and published a number of non-fiction titles under her imprint MME Media. Titles include South Africa’s Greatest Entrepreneurs, Going Global which tells the stories of South Africa’s most successful global companies and a biography of one of its top entrepreneurs; Herman Mashaba, called Black Like You.

Moky started a fiction book series called Nollybooks aimed at getting young Africans to read, and then adapted the series for television co-producing over 21 television movies for the South African TV station etv.

Please introduce yourself to the TAP Fam

My real name is Olajumoke Makura, and I have the privilege of being the executive director of Africa No Filter.

For starters, can you please describe what Africa No Filter is to someone unfamiliar

So, the easiest way to understand what Africa No Filter does is that we are a narrative change organization. And that means we work with storytellers. We fund storytellers and we try to make the ecosystem for storytellers better and easier. Our definition of storytellers is somebody who has a way of telling their story, it doesn’t necessarily have to be written, it can be visual, it can be a film etc. that’s what we call a storyteller.

Thus, every project that comes, the question we ask ourselves as a team is how is this project changing the narrative? That means, if you like painting landscapes of the British countryside, we’re not going to fund you, we’re not the slightest bit interested in your work. So, we’re not for every storyteller, we’re not for every artist, we’re not for every media organization, we have a very specific type of organization and storyteller that we want to work with; those that want to change the African narrative.

Now back to you, how exactly did the name “Moky” come about?

Well, Moky is a completely madeup name! It is a nickname. The way it came about is, in Nigeria, most people called Olajumoke are called Jumoke - but my brother and my family shortened it to Moke. Then, when I went to school in England, they couldn’t say Jumoke or Moke - I became JUMOKY! They called me Jumoky. I’d often hear “Jumoky this, Jumoky that” and I hated it so much so when I moved to London, I dropped the Ju and I became MOKY. And now, my family and everyone else calls me Moky. In fact, if I were to walk past you and you called out Jumoke, I wouldn’t even turn around because no one calls me Jumoke anymore.

What were some of your favorite memories growing up as a child in Nigeria

My favorite memory is growing up in Lagos with a gang of my friends riding my bicycle in our area, playing in a gutter trying to catch fish and frogs and climbing trees. It was so much fun just being kids playing outdoors in a way that kids aren’t doing today. We had open spaces in those days.

How did your career get started?

I went to school in the UK and when I left University, the first job I had was a sales job. I learned to sell, and I believe that is the most important skill I acquired because at some stage, you’ll need to sell something to somebody. A lot of young people say, “I don’t like selling, I’m not a salesperson”. No, you are, you are! So that’s the first great thing that I did. I then moved into public relations, PR communications. I already had a passion for writing, my father was a writer, so I was always a bit of a writer. And I was also an entrepreneur at heart. Because I’m unmanageable, it’s hard to manage me because I have ideas and things I want to do so I started my own business.

After being in communications for a while I then went into publishing. I was publishing books and doing production. A full-on creative entrepreneur. In between that, I left the UK and moved to South Africa and that’s where things really took off.

At this point, did you already know what moved and inspired you?

It was once I moved to South Africa that I really figured this out; that the one thing that inspired and moved me was telling stories about us as Africans. From quite early on. I used to get annoyed by things such as “Live Aid”. The 1985 concert to save Africans. Most people might not remember that but just watching those images, as if every single African is poor, and that you know, just because you’re white, and you live in the Global North, you’re better than me, or that you could feel pity for me, it was an actual thing that moved me to do a lot of the things I’ve done.

I wrote a book called Africa’s Greatest Entrepreneurs because I was like, we have entrepreneurs too. I produced a series called “Living It”, which is about Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous in Africa. We have rich people, too. It was always like, no, we are not different, there’s no othering of us. So that’s been a strand through my career.

Would you say that the single most consistent strand of your career has been storytelling?

Yes, the single strand that pins all my work together is storytelling. And I’ve had the privilege of being on all sides of it. I’ve written books, I’ve published books, I’ve produced, I’ve acted in TV series, you know. Then I came to Africa No Filter and it’s like God gave me the job. If I’d put everything I do, and everything I hope to achieve into one job, it’s the role that I have now at Africa No Filter. I couldn’t have asked for it. I couldn’t have created it. It’s been an amazing journey to get here, but the thing about every journey is it’s only when you look back, that you realize that you’re always on the road towards it. I just thought I was doing this, doing that, but then I got here, and it all made sense.

I have always thought you were part of the founders of Africa No Filter.

No. Africa No Filter started off as a project of the Ford Foundation. They were looking for a project that all their offices in Africa could do, and the one thing that they all realized that they had in common was the fact that the stereotypes about Africa were a problem. So they came up with the concept; Africa No Filter. To support the development of nuanced stories that shift stereotypical and harmful narratives within and about Africa. But then they thought, why should we, as the Ford Foundation, be the only ones that fund this? Because other foundations, other philanthropies and really everybody is affected by these stereotypes. we do. One, we do research. Two, we do grantmaking because we’re trying to build a community and four, we do a bit of advocacy; to be a bit of a watchdog around the African narrative. I will say, this is the best job ever.

So, they went out and got funding and commitment from four other foundations to get in on the idea. Afterwards, they were like oh, we need to go and find somebody to run it. At the time I was doing work with the Gates Foundation when I saw the idea and I instantly loved it. I thought, you mean, somebody can pay me to do the work that I was already doing on my own. I applied for the job and got it.

In your head, what was the process of coming up with these pillars?

You start off with a vision that you need to actualize and bring to life. And not everybody in the world is good at taking an idea and making it into something. But that’s something that entrepreneurs naturally have because we always start off with a vision. In this case, it helped that I’d had this vision in my head for a long time, so it wasn’t brand new.

When you started, on your first day, what was the plan for Africa No Filter.

It was a case of here’s a piece of paper with what we think it could be, but you need to turn it into something. In the last two years, that’s what I’ve been doing, trying to figure out what is and how we can use it to change the narrative around our continent. We’ve come up with pillars around the things

On the day that I started, I was clear. First and foremost, I believe in evidence, so we were going to need and do research. I’m not a data person but if you tell me something, I want to know why, I want you to show me the evidence. So, I always knew I was going to do research. I also knew that we were lucky to have this money from European and American funders and that we needed to give it away. Thus, we were going to give out grants. The question became, who are we going to give grants out to? Because we deal in narrative and we know that narrative evolves through stories told over time, I figured we need to work with storytellers. But then another question came up, who do we consider storytellers? We settled on people in the media and in the arts and culture space. give out about a million dollars a year. And in Africa, it’s not a lot when you look at the scale of the challenge and the size of the continent. But you know, there are only a handful of organizations that can take huge grants, you know, some of the bigger people who fund us want to give away half a million dollars. But in doing that, you’re cutting out some of the emerging artists or just the younger people who are making stuff happen. So I like the space we’re in, I like this $500 to $25,000 although the most popular grant category is the $500 to

The other part about building a community, I knew that before African No Filter, I cared about narrative, and I knew I wasn’t the only one. So, I thought about how do we include people and organizations like TAP in this so that it’s more than one organization? It must be a bunch of organizations all pushing for the same thing. Then we had to find these organizations and people with a similar goal, then we had to support them in their work, that’s what we set out to do. In my mind, I was and I’m still very clear and very focused on what we must do.

What’s made it possible for you to have done so much in such a short time?

I have to say that the thing about Africa No filter is that we actually have money. We’re not a complete startup, we have funds to do the work we want to do. In the beginning, some of that money was given with the mindset of, let’s give this money to the Africans and let’s see what they do with it, you know! And the amazing thing is that this year, a lot of our funders’ terms came up because we only had an initial funding of two years, but they’ve all come back, and they’ve all come back with more money. And that really says to me that we’re doing more than they expected. Like we’ve given them a return on their investment. And I think that’s amazing. That’s the biggest affrmationtomethatmyfunders have come back with more money than they originally started with.

You spoke about doing research. What are some of the most interesting findings that you’ve uncovered?

We’ve learnt quite a lot of interesting things. For example, we did research on “How African media covers Africa” and it was eye opening; there’s this perception that we as Africans, we do all the right stuff. We don’t tell those horrible stories about ourselves, it’s always you know, the international media. What we found was the opposite. Research showed that in more than 80% of the stories Africans were reading about each other; In other words, I’m sitting in South Africa reading about Ghana, it was all negative! More than 80% of the time, it was stories about conflict, post electoral conflict and about humanitarian crises. There was no good news.

We also did a report on the narratives around doing business in Africa. Lots of interesting things. But one of the things that I found interesting was that the Africa continental Free Trade Agreement, probably the single biggest thing that can potentially happen to Africa, a one market for the whole continent to trade and do business with each other, was only covered in 1% of the business stories on Africa. If we as Africans are not writing about it, how will entrepreneurs know how to leverage this.

And the last one, I’ll tell you, a creativity report that we’ve recently published. We were polling creatives in Africa, we did it in nine countries, to understand how creatives feel about the creative industries? What struck me was that very few of them believed it was a viable sector for them to go into as a career.

$2,000 mark. In the market we’re in, people are putting a lot of stuff together for that amount of money. That’s the one that we get the most applications for.

What are the 3 most exciting ideas/projects that you’ve funded so far?

One of the most exciting projects we’re doing now is this virtual reality augmented reality project, we’re working on with Meta.

But as you know, we have over 150 grantees, and we’ve done as little things as helping somebody develop their own album, some advocacy, some film, and media projects. We’ve done a lot of things. So, it’s like asking your mother, who’s your favorite child? Um, you can’t really answer that in public.

But I’ll tell you, the kind of projects that I like, it’s the people behind them, because you really can fund an idea, but you really fund the person behind it. You know, I’ve just seen several different grantees that we have here in Kenya, and I’m just blown away by the work they’re doing.

What does the next few years hold for Africa No Filter?

You know, one of the things that you need to understand if you want to create change is that change doesn’t come overnight, it takes time. And narrative change particularly, doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time. But we know that you can change the narrative, one story at a time. Over the next three years, I want to see more of what we already do. I want to see more stories. I want to see more grantees coming in. I want to see more research. I want to see more kinds of watchdog initiatives and more things that say that hold on, you can’t speak to us like that, that is not okay for you to tell a story like that. We’ve only been here for two years, you know, strong brands are built over time. We’re standing on four very strong pillars, and we’ll continue those pillars. Research, grant making, community building and advocacy. We will push on with our pillars, how we do what we do may change but our pillars will stay strong.

What are you most excited for? What is the future of African creativity?

You know, from where I sit right now, we are often approached by a lot of organizations saying they want to work with creatives, they want to work with African creatives. So, I think right now, there’s never been a better moment to be a creative on the continent, because it’s like the world is thinking, oh, we need to do something different. And what we’ve been trying to do is channel some of that funding into the creative sector in Africa.

So, for me if you’re an African creative today, put your hand up and work. Because there’s opportunity out there for you. There are people who want to fund you, Africa is the next big market. And it’s been for a while. But, right now, I’ve never seen as much attention on the African creative space, ever. And we have reports, there’s numbers, figures, of what it’s supposed to be worth and of how many people it can employ, so yeah, now is the time.

On a personal level, in these two years that you’ve been busy building this platform, what are the two things that you’ve learnt about yourself?

Something I’ve learned in the last two years about myself is that if you’re in the right situation, you will thrive. And you will be better than you ever thought you would. What I mean is, I was in a role that was great. And I always use the example that I was in a tight jumpsuit. I was a bit restricted, but I thought it was okay. I thought, well, you know, I’m only supposed to move my arms this wide. And I’m not supposed to take two big steps. Until I got to Africa No Filter, and I realized, oh my god, I’m a size 12, I’m a size 14. Here, I thought that I could move, and I could do things because I was in the right environment for me.

A lot of the time we tolerate the wrong situations because we’re scared that we’re going to lose our job or because it is what our parents want of us. Something I believe in that was reinforced in the last two years is that if you do things out of fear, you’ll end up miserable or having half the life. Whereas if you do things out of love; you’ll be alright. And the universe has a way of looking after you and I really believe that. Even if Africa No Filter stopped today for me, I know that I’m going on to something else. I’m going on to it and maybe I thought I was a size 12 here and I’m actually a size 18 When I go to my next job. I’m in an even bigger space. Just walk in confidence and walk with the knowledge that you’re doing the right thing and everything else will happen.

What are the three African narratives or stereotypes that you’d like to smash?

One, that Africa is broken, because everybody is trying to fix us. The second is that Africans are dependent because everybody is rushing to try and give us money to fix the problems, they think we have. And the third one is that Africans lack the urgency to make the change that they see themselves. I don’t believe any of this one bit. I think Africans do have urgency. You can see it everywhere. I feel that we are not dependent. We have the resources at hand to fix our issues. And the fact that Africa is broken. Are we now sitting in a broken place? No! There should be a multiplicity of narratives so that these narratives aren’t the ones that immediately come to mind when you think about Africa. And I’ll give you a quick example, I was on a train in Germany and a random businessman from Norway was on this train with me. And he’s talking to me and is fascinated about what I do. And I said to him, when I say Africa to you, what do you think? His eyes started getting shifty. He didn’t want to tell me. I said, what are the first words that come to your mind? He was like hmm hmm. I said, “It’s okay, just say it. He said, well, I think a lot about poverty and starving people. That is his image of Africa. That is not what I think of when I think about Africa. There are many, many things going on in Africa but that was literally the only thing he could tell me.

This poverty narrative is so strong, and it’s so inaccurate. We’re not that single story. We are more! There is poverty, yes, but that’s not a full picture of who we are, that doesn’t define us. So yeah, those are the narratives I need to change.

What is the one thing about Moky that people do not know?

Hmm, here’s something that not a lot of people know about me. I’m not a big music fan. I don’t know anything about music at all. I used to listen to talk radio and then podcasts came along and I started listening to podcasts. So yeah, I’m not a great music person.

What are the top 3 podcasts that you’re currently listening to?

Ohm tough question, I love listening to stories so it’s tough to pick but I’d say; Snap Judgement, it’s about random American stories and I really love them. I also listen to Adele Onyango’s podcast, Legally Clueless and I have to say, one of my favorites, which is also one of the oldest podcasts, is This American Life. My ambition is to have my own version of “This American Life”. This is a complete exclusive. I’ve never said it out loud before. I want to do This African Life, a storytelling podcast around just things that happen on the continent.

What keeps you going and motivated in this work?

Meeting the people that we’ve supported keeps me going and motivated. I met someone today who said over COVID If they didn’t receive our funding, they would have closed down. These types of conversations move me. The fact that we’re able to make a difference in a little way, really keeps me going. And the fact that I am really driven by our mission to shift narrative and just change the way the world sees us as Africans. I know our funders think that we do a lot, and we do, but I feel a sense of urgency that we need to do even more. This also keeps me going. I don’t want to look back and say but I didn’t do that. I don’t want to have regrets.

What would you like your legacy to be?

I would like my legacy to be that she was consistent in her passion for shifting how the world sees Africa.