Recorded in August 2025, this episode features a long-form conversation with Onyango Otieno (Rixpoet) — trauma coach, writer, poet, mental health advocate, and host of the Afro-Masculinity Podcast.
We discuss Onyango’s personal journey through childhood violence, depression, and sexual abuse, and how those experiences shaped his work with men and his thinking on masculinity. The conversation explores silence, intergenerational trauma, patriarchy, feminism, and the difficulty many African men face in finding spaces where vulnerability is possible.
This is an open, reflective conversation that moves between personal experience and wider social questions, without rushing toward conclusions.
⚠️ Explicit content:
This episode includes discussion of sexual abuse, violence, mental health, and suicide.
Book recommendation:
The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love — bell hooks
What is African Men Speak?
A journey exploring African masculinity through research, conversations, and personal reflection. The show examines what it means to be an African man today, drawing on academic studies and diverse perspectives from across the continent's rich cultures. Covering topics from personal growth and fatherhood to identity, vulnerability, and accountability. Hosted by a former humanitarian worker turned stay-at-home dad, this programme explores what it means to be a man today, engaging with nuance and difficult truths.