By Michelle Strydom
For the last 10 years, the purpose of the quarterly magazine has been to celebrate South African and African excellence, and to replace the negative with the positive, says Sean Press, CEO and business development director from Contact Media & Communications, who own and publish The Afropolitan.
“I spent some time overseas. People who live overseas, especially people living in exile, talk about the negatives of South Africa, which is quite easy to do but, at the same time, there are so many positives. So we launched the magazine to celebrate everything that was happening in South Africa and Africa as a whole. The entire country was changing and there were a lot of positives.”
The magazine focusses on five editorial pillars; business, luxury, lifestyle, current affairs and culture, and use these pillars to create original, topical content that speaks to the learned afropolitan.
“We want to be a magazine that doesn’t just republish trivial press releases and trivial news. Our market is very educated and informed, so we like to look at topics that create healthy debates so we can hear two opposing sides of an opinion. We want people to not only read the magazine but to share the content with their friends and engage in educated and informed discussions,” says Press.
All work and no play, however, makes jack a dull boy. That’s why the magazine hosts their Afro Night, an event launched to showcase talented South African artists and celebrate the good life.
“Afro Night is an event where we get partners and advertisers of the magazine to get involved by sponsoring the event, and we just have a great evening with clients and readers listening to artists such as Proverb, Cassper Nyovest and other South African talent. We host the event four times a year, as each issue is released,” says Press.
Just like the content of the magazine, the editorial team is diverse and fresh, and consists not only of journalists working for The Afropolitan.
“We use different writers for different stories, and we use people that have a passion for certain topics. Our team is very diverse. For example, we will have people submitting stories from Nigeria that we’ve never met. Then we have a handful of writers that like to contribute. We keep some of the existing writers but there will also be new writers introduced and that’s why we change the editor every three or four years, because we need to refresh,” says Press.
Not only has the magazine seen a major milestone this year, but it has also seen a change in the editorship. The new editor, Lerato Tshabalala, brings a fresh, new dynamic to the magazine, but still embodies what the magazine stands for.
“Lerato is a real afropolitan. If you look at her background, she grew up in the townships, went to certain schools, was educated locally and internationally, she’s a global citizen and at the same time she’s very informed and opinionated, so she going to bring a fresh dynamic and a talking point to the magazine,” says Press.
The magazine has everything a publication aiming for the top needs, from a diverse, well-informed team, to interesting content, to a powerful, outspoken editor. However, the quantity of readers will never be the magazine’s main concern. Exclusivity and influence is everything.
“We don’t want the magazine to grow exponentially, we want it to grow in influence and stature. We see it growing with young entrepreneurs, and in the digital platforms. We see it growing in Africa and globally, but we don’t want to be mainstream, we want to be the froth on the cappuccino.”