Rigour & Flow with Aiwan and Tamanda

Rigour & Flow with Aiwan and Tamanda
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The show where business meets love, and culture meets critique. We’re Aiwan and Tamanda, two Black women with 20 years each in entertainment, research, and social justice. We’re also a married couple figuring out what it means to build a life and two businesses together. We'll talk about the realities of running a business, making creative work that matters, and navigating research with integrity. What You’ll Find: Honest conversations on entrepreneurship, research, and creativity.Unpacking the intersections of business, leadership, relationships, and identity.Hot takes on media, culture, and social change.Guest insights from entrepreneurs, researchers, and artists.If you’re navigating business, love, and the messiness of life while trying to do meaningful work, you’re in the right place. Episodes drop every Tuesday! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  1. Undocumented & Working in London: A Hidden Struggle | Feedwarmer 3

    6D AGO

    Undocumented & Working in London: A Hidden Struggle | Feedwarmer 3

    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 & Rigour This is an AiAi Studios Production ©AiAi Studios 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    32 min
  2. What Links Queer DV, Raising Boys & Anti-Immigrant Anger?

    SEP 23

    What Links Queer DV, Raising Boys & Anti-Immigrant Anger?

    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 & Rigour This is an AiAi Studios Production ©AiAi Studios 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    56 min
  3. Sickle Cell, Queer Faith & Black Britishness - Through Your Voices

    SEP 16

    Sickle Cell, Queer Faith & Black Britishness - Through Your Voices

    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 & Rigour This is an AiAi Studios Production ©AiAi Studios 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1h 19m
  4. From Tyler Henry to Satanic Panic: Guilty Pleasures in the Afterlife & Beyond

    SEP 9

    From Tyler Henry to Satanic Panic: Guilty Pleasures in the Afterlife & Beyond

    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 TV Please rate, review and subscribe for weekly episodes. Connect with us on: TikTokInstagramLinkedInAiAi StudiosRoots & Rigour This is an AiAi Studios Production ©AiAi Studios 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1h 8m
  5. Too Fat for Europe, Too Skinny for Africa? The Beauty Standards That Trap Us

    SEP 2

    Too Fat for Europe, Too Skinny for Africa? The Beauty Standards That Trap Us

    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 life Please rate, review and subscribe for weekly episodes. Connect with us on: TikTokInstagramLinkedInAiAi StudiosRoots & Rigour This is an AiAi Studios Production ©AiAi Studios 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1h 13m
  6. Are We Ever Really Grown? Generations, Adulthood & the Lie of Turning 40

    AUG 26

    Are We Ever Really Grown? Generations, Adulthood & the Lie of Turning 40

    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 & Rigour This is an AiAi Studios Production ©AiAi Studios 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1h 9m
  7. Are Mixed Race People “Properly Black”?

    AUG 19

    Are Mixed Race People “Properly Black”?

    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 is Please rate, review and subscribe for weekly episodes. Connect with us on: TikTokInstagramLinkedInAiAi StudiosRoots & Rigour This is an AiAi Studios Production ©AiAi Studios 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1h 33m
  8. Who does the algorithm think you are?

    AUG 12

    Who does the algorithm think you are?

    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 & Rigour This is an AiAi Studios Production ©AiAi Studios 2025 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    1h 2m
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About

The show where business meets love, and culture meets critique. We’re Aiwan and Tamanda, two Black women with 20 years each in entertainment, research, and social justice. We’re also a married couple figuring out what it means to build a life and two businesses together. We'll talk about the realities of running a business, making creative work that matters, and navigating research with integrity. What You’ll Find: Honest conversations on entrepreneurship, research, and creativity.Unpacking the intersections of business, leadership, relationships, and identity.Hot takes on media, culture, and social change.Guest insights from entrepreneurs, researchers, and artists.If you’re navigating business, love, and the messiness of life while trying to do meaningful work, you’re in the right place. Episodes drop every Tuesday! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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