Rigour & Flow with Aiwan and Tamanda

Trans rights, migrant labour, and the hidden lives of domestic workers in Britain.In this feedwarmer, we shine a light on Our Place Is Here - a powerful three-part podcast series created in partnership with the Our Place Is Here campaign produced by Aiwan and AiAi Studios in collaboration with gal-dem. The Filipino Domestic Workers Association, and campaign partners fighting for migrant workers’ rights including Kanlungan Filipino Consortium, The Voice of Domestic Workers, Kalayaan, and Purpose. Visit gal-dem.com to read the essays in both English and Tagalog, and find out what you can do to support the campaign. At the centre of our conversation is Nina’s story: a trans woman navigating life as an undocumented domestic worker in the UK. Her essay, read in both English and Tagalog, unpacks the intersection of gender, migration status, and labour - revealing what it means to survive, resist, and find dignity while working behind closed doors.We reflect on the broader campaign, the dual-language production process, and what this project teaches us about trauma-informed storytelling, the politics of translation, and the role of podcasting as a tool for research and systems change.In this episode:Living in fear of sirens: the everyday hypervigilance of undocumented migrant lives.The home as a site of vulnerability & resistance in domestic work.Finding agency through storytelling; how Filipino domestic workers claim their voices.What academia can learn from Our Place Is Here about language, knowledge, and accessibility.The politics of translation: why some words defy Tagalog equivalents - intersectional feminism, classism, racism, for example.Trauma-informed storytelling and how to avoid extractive narratives.Our Place Is Here was created with and for the community it represents - centring the voices of domestic workers themselves, in their own words.Listen, reflect, and ask yourself: who gets to be seen, and whose labour remains invisible?Our Place Is Here was produced by Aiwan Obinyan with production and sound design by AiAi Studios. The Executive Producers for gal-dem were Suyin Haynes, Cici Peng and Katie Goh.The Executive Producer for the Our Place Is Here campaign was Francesca Humi, supported by the Filipino Domestic Workers Association, Kanlungan and The Voice of Domestic Workers.With graphics produced by Karis Pierre and artwork produced by Khadija Said.Please rate, review and subscribe for weekly episodes.Connect with us on:TikTokInstagramLinkedInAiAi StudiosRoots & RigourThis is an AiAi Studios Production©AiAi Studios 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this final episode of Season 2, we return to our signature Unfinished Business format, bringing together the conversations that refused to be neatly stitched up.We open with reflections on the mixed reactions to our episode on mixed race identity, which sparked far more commentary than we anticipated on social media - including a sharp intervention from the brilliant BBC 1Xtra presenter and commentator Richie Brave, who stepped in with timely analysis just as things were getting hot in the kitchen.From there, we weave together three of the season’s most urgent themes to ask: What links queer domestic violence, the raising of boys, and the anger directed at migrants and asylum seekers?Aiwan reflects on the silence around queer relationships in DV spaces - why they’re rarely addressed in mainstream narratives - and the frustration of being asked to speak on the issue in professional spaces when her expertise lies elsewhere. Tamanda builds on this by connecting anti-immigrant rhetoric to violence against women and girls, drawing on the recent statement by 100 women’s rights groups that challenges far-right attempts to scapegoat migrants and asylum seekers.Along the way, we share stories from ourselves and our listeners: being caught in Millwall football crowds on matchday, facing down misogyny from schoolboys, and healing from trauma as a teacher. The through-line is patriarchy and masculinity - how harm is taught, inherited, and weaponised from the playground to the political stage.As Season 2 closes, we carry forward the reflections of two teachers who sent us a powerful voicenote exchange: Who teaches men to harm, where are we right now, and what would it take to break the cycle?In this episode:Mixed reactions to our episode on mixed race identityWhy queer DV remains invisible in mainstream narrativesThe exhaustion of lived experience testimony, and why healing is not the same as harmPatriarchy, masculinity and power, from the playground to the political sphereSister Space, Southall Black Sisters & the 100 women’s rights groups statement against far-right rhetoricStories from ourselves and our listeners: Millwall football crowds, classroom misogyny, and teacher traumaHow much are we really rewriting gender scripts in schools today?Reflections on Season 2 - what we’ve learned, and what we’re carrying into the futurePlease rate, review and subscribe for weekly episodes.Connect with us on:TikTokInstagramLinkedInAiAi StudiosRoots & RigourThis is an AiAi Studios Production©AiAi Studios 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We hand the mic to you. For our first-ever community voicenote episode, we asked you, our listeners, to share what’s stayed with you so far. What you’ve disagreed with. And what you want us to explore more deeply. The result is this moving, funny, and thoughtful collection of reflections that remind us why we make this show in the first place.From lived experiences of sickle cell and navigating Black British and other migrant identities, to the intersections of queerness and faith, your voices bring new dimensions and fresh truths to the conversation.We are so grateful to everyone who sent in a voicenote. We received a lot more than we expected and could only feature a small selection here, but we’ll be returning to others across the season as they connect with future themes. Also, since we loved hearing from you directly: we’ve decided to keep our voicenote channel open all season long, so please keep sending your reflections, provocations, and questions as you listen.Please rate, review and subscribe for weekly episodes.Connect with us on:TikTokInstagramLinkedInAiAi StudiosRoots & RigourThis is an AiAi Studios Production©AiAi Studios 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We abandon the serious stuff and dive straight into our love of all things woo-woo: near-death experiences, dodgy mediums, growing up under Satanic Panic, and the paranormal guilty pleasures that make us cry with laughter.Tamanda sets the scene early: this is not a serious death and grief episode. Instead, it’s a confessional of the strange, terrifying, and sometimes hilarious ways we first encountered the afterlife - from her family cat “Pussy Rosa”, to the endless references to reincarnation and sangomas in her mother’s magazines.Aiwan recalls growing up under the shadow of debunked Christian writers like Rebecca Brown and Mary K. Baxter, whose lurid books about demons terrified her as a child… and still rack up glowing Amazon reviews. Meanwhile, Tamanda confesses her loyalty to Tyler Henry, the sweating, scribbling “white boy band” medium who claims to chat with the dead.Between the crying-laughing fits, we ask ALLLLLL the serious-unserious questions: are near-death experiences brain glitches, or proof of the great beyond? Are mediums for real, or do they just make really great TV? And is it better to chase the afterlife — or focus on the here and now?In this episode:Netflix guilty pleasures, Tyler Henry, and the medium who sweats his way to the other sidePussy Rosa the cat, Nollywood demons, and the strange ways we first met deathRebecca Brown, Mary K. Baxter, and the Christian books that terrified a generation (and still sell like hotcakes)Why we can’t stop watching dodgy paranormal shows even when we don’t believe a word of themNDEs: glitch in the brain, window to the beyond, or just our favourite binge-worthy trope?Laughing our way through the fears that used to keep us up at night🎧 Listen wherever you get your podcasts 🎥 Watch the full episode on YouTube📲 Follow us on TikTok 🔁 Share with someone who secretly loves bad paranormal TVPlease rate, review and subscribe for weekly episodes.Connect with us on:TikTokInstagramLinkedInAiAi StudiosRoots & RigourThis is an AiAi Studios Production©AiAi Studios 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We step into the tangled, deeply personal politics of body image - and the fat and skinny shaming scripts that shape how we see ourselves, each other, and the people we love.We open with a conversation about what it means to be two women in a relationship with entirely different body types; each of us shaped by radically different cultural beauty standards in our own homes. From Lagos to London, Malawi to the Midlands, we unpack how the same body can be celebrated in one place and critiqued in another - and sometimes by the very same people!Tamanda shares her lifelong entanglement with weight, the childhood humiliations that stuck, and how growing up in southern Africa taught her that a bigger body could be a symbol of health, wealth, and desirability. Meanwhile, Aiwan reflects on the flip side: the invisibility and dismissal that can come with being naturally slim, the “chicken bone legs” taunts of school, and why she’s had to defend the legitimacy of skinny shaming as real harm.Along the way, we trace the food rules and body scripts we inherited: from family kitchens lined with SlimFast boxes, to the public weigh-ins of Weight Watchers, to today’s Ozempic era. We unpack how those scripts collide in our relationship, how they shape intimacy, and what it takes to stop policing each other’s bodies when the culture won’t.In this episode:Loving each other while living in very different bodies and body rulesWhy fat and skinny shaming are two sides of the same policing coinThe cultural flip: how African and European standards can praise or condemn the same bodyFamily food rules and public humiliation, from SlimFast to “30 lemons a day”Weight Watchers, Ozempic, and the shifting landscape of current-day diet cultureWhat it means to write new body scripts in love and in lifePlease rate, review and subscribe for weekly episodes.Connect with us on:TikTokInstagramLinkedInAiAi StudiosRoots & RigourThis is an AiAi Studios Production©AiAi Studios 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We step into the messy truth about adulthood, rites of passage, and why so many of us hit 40 feeling… not quite grown.Aiwan opens with Kendra Lindsay’s viral post - a rallying call to join the “Council of Elders” instead of clinging to youth - which ultimately ruffled the feathers of a legion of women in their 40s. From there, we dive into the uncomfortable question: Where did we get the idea that 40 isn’t old? And who exactly benefits from allowing us to believe that, at 40, we are still really youthful?The conversation spirals into Blindboy’s take on the infantilisation of millennials - from the deregulation of children’s advertising in the 1980s, to the way nostalgia and “adult baby” culture can soothe us… while distracting us from demanding what we deserve.Tamanda shares her own feelings about approaching a milestone age: how she carries all the responsibilities of an adult, but none of the financial security promised to us if we worked hard and played by the rules. Aiwan reflects on getting past the big 40, growing up outside of commercial youth culture, the rites of passage she did experience, and why she believes adulthood is something we should step into rather than avoid.Together, we ask what happens when capitalism needs to keep us “forever young”, just so it can hold on to its happy and willing consumers - and what it takes to claim your place as a fully-fledged adult in a system that keeps moving the goalposts.In this episode:Are We Ever Really Grown? The truth about turning 40, rites of passage, and the “Council of Elders”Blindboy on millennials, nostalgia, and how childhood marketing still shapes our adulthoodTamanda on reaching 40 with responsibilities, but without the markers of security her parents’ generation hadAiwan on growing up outside the commercial toy culture, and how the protectionist values of the Church set her up for stepping into adulthoodHow selling to us has become a way of silencing our demandsThe case for reclaiming intergenerational community and collective adulthoodPlease rate, review and subscribe for weekly episodes.Connect with us on:TikTokInstagramLinkedInAiAi StudiosRoots & RigourThis is an AiAi Studios Production©AiAi Studios 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

One of the most emotionally charged and quietly policed questions in the politics of race - a question so fraught, it’s almost unsayable: Are mixed race people “properly Black”?This time, the question’s unquestionably personal…!This isn’t just a discussion between two Black women. It’s a conversation between two queer women in love - building a life, a business, and a podcast together - while navigating complex and sometimes uncomfortable truths about race, desire, identity, and proximity.Tamanda shares what it meant to grow up mixed race in Botswana with a Black mother and a white British father - and the deep shame and silences that often surrounded her identity. From being told she wasn’t “properly Black” to the experience of not speaking the language of her homeland, she traces the painful dissonance between cultural belonging and bloodlines. Aiwan speaks with her usual candour about never imagining she’d be in a relationship with a mixed-race person. She reflects on the distrust and resentment she once held towards mixed-race people, shaped by the realities of colourism, social hierarchy, and the unspoken rules of blackness in the UK. Together, we explore how narratives of race shift across borders and generations, how identity is shaped by more than just skin tone, and why mixed identity is neither a bridge nor a middle ground - but its own terrain, shaped by history, pride, shame, and longing.In this episode:“You’re not properly Black”, and other wounding words that linger, even in Black-majority spacesGrowing up mixed in Botswana, and the loneliness of not speaking the languageThe violence of white family members and the refusal to reckon with itHow the politics of proximity, the violence of colourism and the deep distrust of whiteness meant Aiwan never anticipated falling for a mixed-race womanMixed identity across borders: Botswana, South Africa, Northern Ireland, EnglandThe diversity of mixed race identities and the impossibilities of pigeon-holing and fitting people into neat boxesThe “best of both worlds” narrative, and the violence and erasures it containsWhy mixed race isn’t a middle ground, and what we gain when we stop pretending it isPlease rate, review and subscribe for weekly episodes.Connect with us on:TikTokInstagramLinkedInAiAi StudiosRoots & RigourThis is an AiAi Studios Production©AiAi Studios 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We’re unpacking what our algorithms say about us, whether business can cure poverty across the continent of Africa, and why women are so obsessed with true crime as a genre.Tamanda opens with a late-night spiral about the politics of platform recommendations: what do your YouTube and Instagram feeds reveal about your identity? And are you really who you think you are? Or does the algorithm tell a different story?Aiiwan follows with a deep dive into African economic development, reflecting on the new Dangote oil refinery in Nigeria and why some argue that business - and not Western aid - is the real key to the continent’s future.Finally, in our segment, we wrestle with a question sparked through a recent meeting with @Duncan Barber at Audible: What explains the huge gender skew in true crime fandom, and is it possible that watching violent stories helps survivors feel safe?This episode moves through algorithm data, development, and the darkest corners of the entertainment industry - with rambling side steps into South London in the '80s, postcolonial theory, YouTube survivalists and off-grid dwellers, and Netflix serial killers. It's warm, strange, expansive and surprising… just how we like it!In this episode:What our Instagram and YouTube algorithms say about race, gender, queerness… and, well, all of us…!Why YouTube thinks Aiwan is a right-wing white man and Tamanda is a Jamaican Muslim Black womanist weight-watcher!The story behind Nigeria’s first oil refinery, and what it could mean for African economic independence and sovereignty.Can business cure poverty? Is trade inherently capitalist? And what does feminist economics say in response?The gender politics of true crime obsession, and why trauma survivors might feel “seen” by serial killer stories.Shoutouts to Magatte Wade, Ha-Joon Chang, Walter Rodney, Duncan Hamilton at Audible, Michael Berhane at POCIT and…. the Betrayal podcast. (…Yup! We really put them all in the same bullet point! And the same episode!)Please rate, review and subscribe for weekly episodes.Connect with us on:TikTokInstagramLinkedInAiAi StudiosRoots & RigourThis is an AiAi Studios Production©AiAi Studios 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We take you inside one of the most joyful, radical, and hard-won celebrations of Black queer life: UK Black Pride. As the movement gets ready to mark another year, we reflect on Aiwan’s work on the UK Black Pride Time Capsule Podcast, what it really means to come into yourself, and the very real challenges of building sustainable spaces that can hold us through every stage of becoming.Aiwan reflects on her first encounter with UK Black Pride back in 2015, the American YouTubers who shaped her sense of queer embodiment, and how discovering Black queer community changed her life after leaving the Church. Tamanda shares her own rather intellectual coming of age, her pathway into queerness in her mid-thirties, and what it means to find belonging without ever having attended UKBP.Together, we explore what it takes to build a Black queer movement that lasts, the unexpected role of YouTube in our sexual and emotional education, and what it means to go through a second adolecense - sex education and all - as a full blow adult! In this episode:UK Black Pride’s twenty-year legacy, and why its existence is no small featComing into queerness later in life, and why a “second adolescence” can be just as disorienting as the firstWhat it meant to find King Kellz, Amber’s Closet, and other queer YouTubers in Aiwan’s second coming of ageLeaving the Church and finding the internet, a gateway to queer joy, sex, and survivalTamanda on longing, embodiment, and finding sex ed through Beck Thom’s Quintimacy and Lama Rod Owens’ teachingsThe challenges of branding, sponsorship, and resourcing UK Black Pride and the challenge of longevityWhat would it take to properly fund a Black queer movement for the long haul?Please rate, review and subscribe for weekly episodes.Connect with us on:TikTokInstagramLinkedInAiAi StudiosRoots & RigourThis is an AiAi Studios Production©AiAi Studios 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We dive headfirst into the contradictions and complexities of what it means to raise boys as a lesbian couple… especially when men have caused us so much harm?Aiwan opens with a striking reflection on The Tin Men, a social media account that toes the line between thoughtful masculinity and, at times, men’s rights rhetoric. From there, she shares more about her own desire for a son, the question of if and how our son would need male role models in their life, and the impacts of growing up in a single parent home without a father figure. Tamanda builds on this by exploring her own ambivalence about having a son… Admittedly one rooted in a deep mistrust of men, trauma, and jokes that land a little too close to home: “Despite having the most amazing father… I’m basically a misandrist!”Together, we unpack what happens when women and queer people are expected to raise emotionally literate boys in a system that still rewards domination, silence, and shame. From incel culture and men’s rights memes, to educational programmes for girls and boys in school and Roxy Longworth’s Behind Our Screens campaign, we ask: what are we passing on - and what’s the cost?In this episode:What if you’re too angry at men to raise a boy with love? …Tamanda on imagining life with a son, and why it fills her with dreadAiwan on The Tin Men, absent fathers, and whether our boychild would really need male role modelsWhat makes incel culture so seductive for some young boysFeminist parenting: idealistic dream, impossible task, or both?What Tamanda learned from Plan International, The Great Initiative and Fearless Futures' school-based attempts to change the narrativeDeep insights from the powerful youth-led Behind Our Screens campaign, including the role of online harm in shaping boys’ values and girls’ experiencesReflections on a conversation with Dr Jenessa Williams who’s done powerful work to understand the attitudes of boys at the intersection of music and metoo Why healing our own father wounds and trauma from gender based violence might be part of the work.Please rate, review and subscribe for weekly episodes.Connect with us on:TikTokInstagramLinkedInAiAi StudiosRoots & RigourThis is an AiAi Studios Production©AiAi Studios 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this three-part episode of Rigour & Flow, we explore how race, gender, and language shape our lives,  and how health inequities, queer histories, and identity politics often get erased.Aiwan opens with a deep dive into sickle cell and other racialised health disparities, reflecting on her own sickle cell trait diagnosis as a child and how the UK’s most common genetic condition continues to be under-researched and underfunded. Tamanda traces the forgotten queer history of Save the Children’s radical founder, Eglantyne Jebb. Plus the hidden twenty-year love affair that formed the backdrop to the charity’s early vision.And together, we grapple with a question sparked by Tamanda’s mum, and our wonderful business partner, Travis Baxter: What does the word “queer” really mean, and who gets to claim it?This episode weaves together personal story, public health, queer history, and language politics - from ringworm and fibroids to possibilities of Save the Children’s “lavender marriage”. It's a curious, surprising, and emotionally rich ride through the margins of health, history, and identity.In this episode:Why sickle cell is still so underfundedm, and what that reveals about racial bias in healthcare. (Shout out NHS Race & Health Observatory and Sickle Cell Foundation, who released their own cogent analysis and report into this issue just weeks after we recorded the episode!)From fibroids to ringworm: the difference Black representation makes in diagnosis and care.Meet Eglantyne Jebb, radical founder of Save the Children, queer humanitarian, and badass rule-breaker.The surprising lesbian history behind the Declaration of the Rights of the Child.What “queer” means across generations, and what it means to claim or reject the word whatever your age or background.On misnaming, identity policing, and why language still carries weight in Black and queer communities.Please rate, review and subscribe for weekly episodes.Connect with us on:TikTokInstagramLinkedInAiAi StudiosRoots & RigourThis is an AiAi Studios Production©AiAi Studios 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We dig into the complicated world of entrepreneurship - from childhood side hustles and early money lessons to investment readiness culture, the “cult of startups”, and what it takes to grow a business without losing yourself.Aiwan shares how her grandma in Nigeria shaped her business mindset growing up on a council estate in London - and how visiting her Auntie Margaret’s market stall in Balham inspired her to pursue a “work for herself” path that would eventually lead to founding her creative media production company, AiAi Studios. Tamanda reflects on earning £400 a day in her early twenties, and why she still walked away from traditional career paths to build something on her own terms.We wrestle with the big questions: Would you take a million pounds from Steven Bartlett? What if education doesn’t work - especially for Black and working class communities? Why are Black women still the least likely to get funding and investment? Can you scale a business without selling out — or burning out?This episode is about ambition, agency, and building something real in a world that still doesn’t expect us to succeed.In this episode:Would you take £1M from Steven Bartlett? We talk trade-offs, temptation, and power.Aiwan’s business mindset - from her grandma’s grind to Auntie Margaret’s market stall in Balham.Tamanda on earning £400 a day in her twenties - and why she still walked away from traditional career paths.Side hustles, childhood paper rounds, and the early money lessons that shaped how we work.The “Black tax” and the pressure to share your earnings, even when you’re building something fragile.Why education felt like a dead end - and what pushed Aiwan to start her own ventures.When investment readiness starts to feel like a trap - or a cult.What it takes to grow without losing yourself: perfectionism, control, delegation and all the rest.Can Black women scale a business without selling out - or burning out?Please rate, review and subscribe for weekly episodes.Connect with us on:TikTokInstagramLinkedInAiAi StudiosRoots & RigourThis is an AiAi Studios Production©AiAi Studios 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this bonus segment, Tamanda and Aiwan dig deeper into the existing and emerging research around LGBTQ+ domestic violence.They reflect on the stories we don’t hear, the data that doesn’t exist or is too easily overlooked, and the ways coercive control shows up in queer relationships, from misgendering and outing to body shaming and withholding gender-affirming care.Tamanda shares insights from Galop’s research and from scholars working to fill the gaps in how LGBTQ+ domestic abuse is understood. She references Dr James Rowlands and the CRiVA team at Durham University on coercive control in queer relationships, and Dr Roxanne Khan’s work on honour-based abuse in South Asian LGBTQ+ communities, showing how identity can become a weapon, and why support systems still fail so many.Together, they dig into the existing evidence to ask:Why are shelters and services still built around outdated gender scripts?What happens when abusers weaponise race, queerness or gender identity?And how do we learn the difference between healthy conflict and coercive control, if no one teaches us?Please rate, review and subscribe for weekly episodes.Connect with us on:TikTokInstagramLinkedInAiAi StudiosRoots & RigourThis is an AiAi Studios Production©AiAi Studios 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this deeply personal and long-overdue episode, we unpack the silences, scripts, and systems that shape how we understand abuse, and how they fail queer people in particular.Aiwan opens up for the first time about her experience of domestic violence in a same-sex relationship, and what made it so hard to recognise or name. Tamanda reflects on a coercive relationship marked by gaslighting, manipulation, and lies, including a fabricated cancer diagnosis, and how it warped her sense of reality. Together, they explore the red flags they missed, the stories they inherited, and why patriarchy still shapes which kinds of harm we’re taught to see… even within queer relationships.From Carmen Maria Machado’s In the Dream House to The Queer Ultimatum, from silence in Black and religious communities to the glaring gaps of the archive, the creative industries and the research sector, this episode makes space for stories that are too often erased or distorted, and asks what it would take to name abuse on our own terms.In this episode:Why emotional and psychological abuse often go unrecognisedHow coercive control plays out in queer and same-sex relationshipsPower, silence, and what stops us from speaking up, especially in minoritised communitiesThe difference between conflict and control, dysfunction and abuseThe role of shame, identity, and isolation in keeping people stuckWhat research, archives, and media still get wrong about queer survivorsHow patriarchy shows up, even in supposedly liberated relationshipsFor those who want to go deeper, we’re dropping a bonus episode this Thursday 10th July, diving deeper into the research, data, and structures behind queer domestic violence and coercive control.Please rate, review and subscribe for weekly episodes.Connect with us on:TikTokInstagramLinkedInAiAi StudiosRoots & RigourThis is an AiAi Studios Production©AiAi Studios 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

⚠️ Content warning: domestic violence, emotional abuseSome stories mark you.Even when they’re not yours.Even when you’re just eight years old, standing in the corner, trying not to breathe.Even when the person on the phone says they’re dying, and you believe them - because how could someone LIE like that?In this first episode of Season 2, we’re talking about the kinds of relationships we don’t talk about.The ones you don’t know how to name.The ones that break you open in slow, strange ways. Before you eventually wake up...🎧 Full episode drops this Tuesday.Please rate, review and subscribe for weekly episodes.Connect with us on:TikTokInstagramLinkedInAiAi StudiosRoots & RigourThis is an AiAi Studios Production©AiAi Studios 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tamanda introduces us to a podcast that deeply moved her: Sunday School for Misfits, created by theologian and public educator Dr Selina Stone.Tamanda shares how she first met Selina through a chance encounter at a ‘Life Beyond the PhD’ residential - a connecting moment that led to a research collaboration which exposed her to Selina’s unique approach to theology, which is as rigorous as it is compassionate. Across academia, community, and the digital pulpit, Selina brings a voice that holds space for questions, contradictions, and deep cultural and spiritual complexity. In this episode, we weave clips from Sunday School for Misfits with our own reflections and conversations and explore what makes Selina’s work feel so needed, especially for those of us raised in traditions that didn’t always leave room for our full selves.Together, we explore faith beyond binaries, rage as revelation, and what it means to sit with the messiness of belief in the wake of spiritual harm. From Pentecostal pews to decolonial theology classrooms, this is a conversation for those trying to make peace with a God that doesn’t always make sense, and a church that often makes even less.It’s for the seekers, the doubters, the ones who left and the ones who stayed. And for anyone who needs a reminder that theology can be a place of tenderness, resistance, and unexpected belonging - if only we allow ourselves to stay in the space of the grey.🎧 Listen to Sunday School for Misfits by Dr Selina Stone on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts: https://open.spotify.com/show/1JqJflcsFV3F67FZci8hPJ?si=5de6a4d54bed449aPlease rate, review and subscribe for weekly episodes.Connect with us on:TikTokInstagramLinkedInAiAi StudiosRoots & RigourThis is an AiAi Studios Production©AiAi Studios 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We’re keeping your ears and minds warm between seasons by spotlighting the shows and creators who are moving us, challenging us, and reminding us why we do what we do.This week, Aiwan shares a pick close to her heart: an episode from The Pursuit Playbook hosted by Aprileen Alexander - a finance powerhouse, creative producer, and former gal-dem team member. Produced by AiAi Studios, the show is a masterclass in navigating corporate spaces as a Black woman. It’s giving honesty, guts, and unapologetic ambition.The featured episode, Echoes from the C-Suite: Risking It All with Shani Gonzalez, profiles the extraordinary journey of Shani, Executive VP and Managing Director at Warner Chappell Music UK. She’s launched the careers of global icons like Justin Bieber and Travis Scott, built a legacy through fearless risk-taking, and leads with the kind of strategic instinct and heart-first leadership that Aiwan sees as pure Rigour & Flow.Together, we reflect on what it means to back yourself, trust your gut, and rewrite the playbook for creative and corporate leadership. If you’ve ever wondered how to move with conviction in industries that weren’t built with you in mind — this one’s for you.Listen to The Pursuit Playbook by Aprileen Alexander on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts: https://open.spotify.com/show/48HkvSF1wmEifiM05NswqyPlease rate, review and subscribe for weekly episodes.Connect with us on:TikTokInstagramLinkedInAiAi StudiosRoots & RigourThis is an AiAi Studios Production©AiAi Studios 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We’re back with another Notes from the Margins - our freestyle format where we bring the ideas, tensions, and fragments we’re still sitting with.This one’s all about the stuff that didn’t feel done. The thoughts that followed us around. And the threads we couldn’t let go of.First, we return to Episode 1, and our conversation about faith and queerness as Africans. We talk about what it meant to open the podcast with that episode, what we held back at the time, and how the tension between visibility and vulnerability has followed us ever since. In our second segment, Aiwan returns to our discussion of The Crip Walk from Episode 2 on The Policing of Black Thought, and delves into new insights, learnings, and alternative storytelling around the origins of the dance, including Serena Williams' return to it during her recent Super Bowl performance with Kendrick Lamar. We explore the erasure of this history, what it reveals about disability justice and the Black community, and how we’re trying to deepen our solidarity with Black disabled siblings in our own work.Finally, Tamanda circles back to Episode 4, What It Costs to Have a Baby, and delves deeper into the data on the availability of Black sperm donors in the UK. Drawing on an article shared by Dr Celestin Okoroji, we also dig deeper into compounding health inequalities faced by Black academic women with chronic reproductive health conditions. This episode isn’t just a look back. It’s a season wrap. A reckoning. A moment to honour what we carried into Season 1, and what we’re carrying out of it as we head into a new era of the show.Please rate, review and subscribe for weekly episodes.Connect with us on:TikTokInstagramLinkedInAiAi StudiosRoots & RigourThis is an AiAi Studios Production©AiAi Studios 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We decided to do something a little different...We went LIVE for the very first time. To reflect on the journey so far, answer listener questions, and share a glimpse of life behind the scenes of Rigour & Flow. What followed was a surprising, hilarious, and deeply moving encounter with the people who’ve been with us from the jump.We were joined by listeners from across our community - some who’ve known us for years, others who found us through the podcast - and we talked about everything from what surprised you most about the show to your favourite moments (including the Naija accent requests?!). You asked for uncut episodes, more behind-the-scenes, and some of you even suggested guests. We shared a few things we haven’t said before - including how we really feel about “weird coupley podcast energy.”And then, just as things got good... we were booted off Instagram Live. Without warning. But you came back. Nearly every single one of you returned to the second stream - which, someone said, “would be a good crowd in a real-life room.” That moment? It meant everything.Now we’re back to share our lightly edited version of the LIVE so anyone who couldn’t join can catch up. As it stands, this is an episode about our community. About what it means to think you might end up speaking into the void - only to find the void you imagined actually speaks back. And is absolutely ready to catch you. It’s messy, unscripted, honest, and full of love. It’s a soft ending and a bold beginning. And we couldn’t be more grateful so many of you joined our little island of magic.💬 In this episode:Season One reflections from Aiwan, Tamanda and you - the fam!What surprised us (and you) about making Rigour & FlowBehind-the-scenes realities of podcasting as a coupleWhat we’ve learned from sharing publicly and showing up consistentlyThe tech fail that kicked us off Instagram Live - and what happened nextListener feedback: favourite episodes, future guests, and format requestsOur dreams for community-driven storytelling in Season TwoCommunity Shout-OutThis live episode wouldn’t have been what it was without the incredible people who showed up and showed out.Huge love to Hollie (our behind-the-scenes magician) and Ade (our on-screen facilitator) - you held it down with grace, humour, and heart.And thank you to everyone who joined us live - whether you caught the first stream, came back for part two, or watched the replay. We felt every bit of your presence.Please rate, review and subscribe for weekly episodes.Connect with us on:TikTokInstagramLinkedInAiAi StudiosRoots & RigourThis is an AiAi Studios Production©AiAi Studios 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What if time wasn’t neutral? What if urgency was a trap? What if the clock, like so many systems, was never made with us in mind?We step outside grind culture to ask how time works, and who it works for. From production schedules to academic timelines, we explore how time shapes us, pressures us, and polices us as we navigate systems that demand constant productivity - and often without care or a proper sense of our contexts.Aiwan reflects on her journey as a filmmaker in extractive production environments, where tight turnarounds and top-down decisions often override wellbeing, due process, or nuance. She unpacks how creative work gets distorted by commercial timelines and what’s lost when deadlines take precedence over depth.Tamanda shares how time functioned in her PhD - from the long haul of writing up to the pressure to always be producing. She speaks to the challenge of holding grief, illness, and care within systems that measure value by speed and visibility - and the toll of navigating slow processes inside fast institutions.Together, we unpack the tension between polychronic time (cyclical, relational, fluid) and monochronic time (linear, rigid, task-driven), drawing on our experiences across entertainment, media, and research; between the continent and the diaspora, and from childhood to our current stage. We ask what it means to reclaim time - not just for rest, but for dignity, self-determination, and different ways of knowing.This is an episode about pace, labour, and the politics of production-  but also about boundaries, burnout, and what it means to move on our own terms. In this episode:The systems that shape how time is managed, valued, and weaponisedProduction deadlines, extractive creative cycles, and burnout in media workAcademic timelines, productivity pressures, and the myth of constant progressPolychronic vs. monochronic time - and why linearity doesn’t work for everyoneHow race, queerness, grief, and caring responsibilities disrupt dominant time normsThe tension between institutional pace and lived experienceWhat it means to reclaim time for rest, ritual, and deeper ways of workingPlease rate, review and subscribe for weekly episodes.Connect with us on:TikTokInstagramLinkedInAiAi StudiosRoots & RigourThis is an AiAi Studios Production©AiAi Studios 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.