Billboard Africa's Editor-in-Chief, Nkosiyati Khumalo, chats with Venelize de Lange from media update about editorial strategy, audience engagement and fostering talent in African media.
Leading editorial teams across vastly different platforms comes with a unique set of challenges. How do you guide content that resonates with audiences, balances creativity with data and develops the next generation of talent?
For Nkosiyati Khumalo, who has shaped editorial strategy at GQ South Africa, Apple Music and now Billboard Africa, these questions are central to his work. He has built teams that thrive on collaboration, culture and storytelling, guiding content that connects meaningfully with audiences.
In this Q&A, he reflects on lessons from his career and what African media organisations can do to nurture talent and maintain media trust in 2026.
You have led editorial teams in vastly different spaces, from GQ South Africa to Apple Music and now Billboard Africa. What lessons from these roles guide how you lead editorial teams now?
What's common, no matter where I've been, is that people just want to be understood.
I often think of our work in lifestyle media is that of translation — not in the literal sense, but in making sure that the message someone wants to share, and the message that an audience member understands or takes away from a story, are the same thing.
When it comes to music coverage, the content is powerful enough to tell its own story, so what we can do is help to provide context. I find this especially compelling on global platforms, where music has become a gateway into cultural exchange in a way that's accessible to everyone — which can lead to greater commercial and creative opportunities alike.
How do data analytics and audience metrics influence editorial decisions at major platforms today?
This truly depends on the platform, but overall, I think that, particularly in the lifestyle space, data and metrics should inform editorial decisions, but not dictate them.
There's so much value in having a point of view or reflecting movements in culture, and the trick comes in knowing when to follow or expand on trends — and when to set them.
In the music and entertainment space, what trends are you seeing in how audiences discover and engage with content?
Social media remains key in music discovery, in building communities and creating connections between artists / entertainers and their audiences, but that's a vehicle to get to the art.
People truly want to engage with music or entertainment projects made with heart and humanity. People are rejecting or avoiding things that feel as if they lack substance (hello, AI slop), and turning towards things that feel considered and layered.
You only need to look at some of the world's most popular musicians to see that they work for years to build "creative universes" with each album or project, and they extend these to their visual or live performance projects.
Those could be as simple as a mood or emotion they lock into, or as complex as a study of genre, but either way, it's those moments of relatability that create meaning and depth — and that will keep audiences coming back for more.
As the first black Editor in GQ Worldwide's history, what structural changes do you believe are most crucial for media organisations to implement to nurture diverse editorial talent?
A key point here is nurturing. Promotions and appointments are fantastic steps within diversification e?orts of all kinds, but if organisations aren't willing to invest in pre-promotion development, or they aren't willing to properly equip and support leaders after they've been appointed, they'll abandon the progress they were attempting to achieve.
And that support can take many di?erent shapes, which I've benefited from — mentoring and development programmes that start from day one; full and comprehensive handover processes; and identifying rising stars within the organisation, priming them for future success, and investing in them properly.
How do you cultivate and retain emerging talent within editorial teams, from Writers to Content Strategists?
During my early years at GQ, I worked under the brilliant Editor Craig Tyson, who I often described as a pinball machine: he would find dedicated and passionate people who understood the brand's mission, and then give them the freedom to grow and to bounce ideas around.
He'd nudge us in the right direction when necessary and always give us a clear vision for where he wanted us to go, but also pushed us to try new things, and to push ourselves. I've tried to replicate the same ever since.
Allowing people to bring their ideas and experiences — and these days, their networks — to the table adds so much more value to both the day-to-day work and overall strategy than having a top-down approach ever could.
Lastly, it's important to allow people to take risks — doing so helps propel everyone forward.
What do you see as the biggest challenge facing media professionals in Sub-Saharan Africa today, and how should the industry respond?
Maintaining trust and transparency between platforms and audiences is the challenge that the global industry faces, and African platforms aren't exempt from that.
Issues of media ownership and political influence raise all of the right questions, even with lifestyle media platforms, and people (both within the industry and without) aren't afraid to ask those questions, and aren't afraid to demand better.
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*Image courtesy of contributor and Canva