Shades & Layers
Shades and Layers is a storytelling platform celebrating Black women and women of colour who are building something of their own — on the African continent and across the diaspora.
The podcast launched in 2020 and is now more than 100 episodes strong. In 2025, the show was nominated for Best Long-Time Podcast at the Black Podcasting Awards.
In each conversation, host Kutloano Skosana sits down with founders to explore business ownership, representation, and what sustainability and success really mean in a complex, interconnected world. The conversations are wide-ranging — part masterclass in entrepreneurship, part wisdom for living well — and always a space for women to be fully human: to share the quirks, the doubts, and the vulnerabilities behind the highlight reel.
These days, Shades and Layers is two things woven together. Alongside the podcast, Kutloano — now exploring a new chapter of her own in Italy — sends Life Notes: honest monthly letters on identity, motherhood, reinvention, and the business of building a life.
Shades and Layers’ founding philosophy is: a story well told can change your life, you don't need big accolades for your entrepreneurial journey to matter.
The guests span beauty, fashion, and wellness, North and South: Dr. Theo Mothoa-Frendo on building a science-based African skincare range with USO; Taryn Gill of The Perfect Hair on supply chains and brand-building; Katonya Breux of Unsun Cosmetics on melanin and sunscreen for every skin tone; Abiola Akanni of IYA Well on non-performance in yoga; and designers like the late Maria McCloy of her eponymous fashion label, Nkuli Mlangeni-Berg of The Ninevites, and Candace Lawrence of Modern Gesture, championing handmade, custom, and circular production.
Whether you're here to listen, to read, or to build something of your own — welcome to the circle.
Shades & Layers
Do Your Work, And Other Truth Bombs with Nokulinda Mkhize Horwood (S2, E5)
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The Halfway Point
This is episode 5 of Season 2 of Shades and Layers, and I like where we are with the conversations today. We've talked mental and physical well-being.
It is not possible to speak Wellness, Well-being and Black women and not talk about African spirituality. Today, my guest and sangoma Nokulinda Mkhize Horwood discusses her profession, her own practice, her observations of changing attitudes towards sangomas over the past 13 year's since her initiation and some of the challenges she still faces in her work.
Nokulinda is known as @noksangoma on social media and she's also well-known for her often sold-out talks, Gogo Speaks. Judging by the popularity of these talks, not only is she providing a much needed service, but she is part of the zeitgeist of the de-colonial movement of young South Africans. Her presence and visibility are both liberating and deeply necessary for her peers.
Our discussion covers everything, from the role of family in spiritual well-being, alienation and anxiety in the city, capitalism-induced spiritual crises in South African urbanites, Covid-19, Nokulinda's own well-being and how it's changed her approach to life in general and her practice as a sangoma.
It might all sound serious, but it's a fun conversation and we do get super silly at the end of the conversation. You will love it!
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
Indumba - A sangoma’s healing room, traditionally a hut. It is nonetheless a sacred space.
Amatwasa - Initiates training to become sangomas
Ukufemba - a healing process designed to trap and remove negative energies and/or evil spirits
uMgidi - celebratory ceremony
Amasiko - cultural ustoms
Ubuntu - I am because we are
Ubungoma - a spiritual calling
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