Ghetto Radio

Ghetto Radio is a Nairobi FM station on 89.5 that talks to the city's informal settlements and to young listeners who speak Sheng. The station has been broadcasting since December 2007, and it is credited as the first Kenyan station to run its programming entirely in Sheng.

The idea from the start was simple. People living in places like Mathare, Kibera and Korogocho rarely heard their own lives on mainstream radio, so Ghetto Radio set out to put residents, musicians, poets and graffiti artists on air to tell those stories themselves. Expect reggae, local hip hop and gengetone, mixed with street-level news and opinion delivered in the slang of the estates.

A sister body, the Ghetto Radio Foundation, was formed with a wider goal: helping slum communities in other African cities start their own FM stations, and training young people to run every job at them. Online, the brand ran two sites of its own, ghettoradio.co.ke and the pan-African thisisafrica.me.

Audience research once gave the station bragging rights. One audience study placed Ghetto Radio first among Nairobi listeners aged 15 to 25. The breakfast desk in that era was run by King Kafu, Sollo and Kanana, and the morning show has gone by the name Brekko. Later line-ups were not confirmed for this profile, and neither was current ownership.

To listen, tune to 89.5 FM anywhere in Nairobi, or press play on the Ghetto Radio stream on this page if you are outside the city or abroad.