Despite her first boss telling her “women don't belong on radio”, 20 years on Heart FM’s afternoon drive show host Suga is on top of her game, writes Gasant Abarder.
Cape Town - Heart FM’s afternoon drive show host Suga will this year celebrate 20 years in commercial radio. Take a minute to consider this remarkable achievement - one that takes some doing in an age when the media space has been at its most disruptive.
Despite her first boss telling her “women don't belong on radio” - Suga has more than established herself as a household brand. In fact, 20 years on she is on top of her game.
“It's been an incredible 20-year journey,” she beams as we sit down in a pause room outside the radio studios.
Suga, who had just turned 21 when she got her first radio job at Good Hope FM in 1997, is the only woman in this town to host a drive time show. Drive time shows are radio's equivalent of prime time TV and she is giving her male competitors a lot to think about.
Big doses of hard work, determination and drive were the ingredients for two decades of sustained success.
Born Rochelle Scheepers, 40, Suga is a middle child with an older brother and younger sister. Her parents still live in Fairways where she grew up, first attending Turfhall Primary before moving on to Ottery Road Methodist.
She then moved to St Cyprians from Grade 6 to the end of Grade 11 before matriculating at Rosebank College.
And then Suga enrolled for a BA Social Sciences degree at UCT with big plans to be a lawyer. That was until the radio bug hit.
“I started at UCT radio while I was studying and actually started on commercial radio when I was writing my final exams during my final year at UCT. I was studying a BA social science degree so I could do law subjects as part of my first degree.
“The plan was to go into law so I majored in English and Economics and did all the law subjects. That way I was going to do it in five years and not six years. I had this whole thing planned.
“I got involved in the radio because it was a society at UCT and we were encouraged to join societies. The then station manager said to me that women don't belong on the radio. That's actually what he said to me.
“That day I got a form and I joined the radio station and spent the next three years, while studying, on the radio every single day.”
Suga’s big break came when she won a competition run by Coca-Cola. The prize was an audition with Good Hope FM.
“It was terrible, I was so nervous when I went for that audition. I felt like I had forgotten everything. Three months later, while still studying and about to write my final exams, they called me in and said your first show is on October 1 and that was 1997.
“My first Good Hope FM show was the graveyard shift - everybody starts there - from 2am to 6am. Most days I would go into work until 6am and then write my exams at UCT. I was also still working a part-time job at Woolworths, so I was doing all of that and I was so happy to pass but also really happy that I had a job when I graduated.
“It was an exciting time. When they talk about old school radio now they talk about 90s radio and those were the glory years. The music was exciting but we had also grown up with that station. Good Hope was in our homes. I wasn't allowed to watch TV past 8 o'clock so the radio was my companion.
“You grew up with these names and they were in your homes every day. There was something exciting about living in Cape Town and it was a new time in our democracy. There were opportunities that were never there before.
“It was just a great time to be in radio and to be part of this new change. It's Irma G’s 20th year in radio as well because we were actually called in together. They gave us our jobs on the same day and we had to meet each other because we had to divide the week up into Monday to Thursday and Thursday through the weekend and who was going to take care of which shift.”
I met Suga back when I was a fledgling reporter about 19 years ago. She was just landing day-time slots on Good Hope FM.
But what struck me was that she always had this positive bias about life. This was despite the challenges she faced as an upstart.
That underlying notion that women had no place on radio was also never far away.
Yet when you tune in to her Drive 326 show - daily between 3pm to 6pm - on Heart FM these days it's that same feel-good feeling you get when you listen in.
You could be grumpy while driving home from a tough day at the office, the mountains could be burning, or you've been hit with a jaw-dropping water bill. Suga is guaranteed to make you smile.
There is a chemistry Suga has with the colleagues she leads on her show that you can't script. They laugh at themselves and they tackle the hard issues in a way that make them palatable.
But mostly, you always get the sense from the show that Suga knows music. It's no accident because she is also an accomplished dance and club DJ.
“It is so important for me to engage with the music. There have been ways that I have had to create spaces to enjoy and play some of the music that I think we should be doing on a drive show.
“It's a very fine balance because it's a drive show. It needs to be highly familiar. People are driving home and they're stressed, they want to hear familiar stuff and sing along.
“But I felt we needed to be innovative. This is a new drive show and we need to break new music at some stage. So we created spaces for that. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays we have the double play and that is where the freshest songs live - sometimes never played before - and they live on drive.
“I am involved literally, tangibly with music every day - before I come to work, at work and when I go home. I have my own little studio at home where I create my mixes that I play on a Friday, which is another space they created for me. I don't think I will be able to survive without it.”
Suga isn't fazed that she is a lone female voice in the drive show landscape. She had needed to adapt after landing the show but she wouldn't have it any other way.
“It's a first for Cape Town and I'm having so much fun. Before I was doing a drive show I was flying solo, I did my shows on my own and I never had any producers. I never knew what that was all about. I just did it all by myself.
“It's been very interesting to learn to adapt to having more than one person in the studio and it definitely comes down to a good understanding, lots of eye contact, sometimes a lot of hand movements as well. We can't all be talking over each other.
“I don't know if I have a trick or there's a secret but we have a laugh and that's real, nothing is scripted. But I'm growing into this other role of being a captain of my ship. It's my show so I control the energy and what's going on. It's very special and humbling when someone comes up to you and tells you what you had talked about on air.”
Two years ago, Suga’s life changed significantly when she became mom to Nelson. It was around this time when my wife Laylaa and I started tuning in regularly. We could completely relate as parents as Suga spoke about her pregnancy and later her little boy.
“It's been quite liberating because I am generally a private person when it comes to my immediate family. At one point I thought you can't be a female doing a drive show and be talking about babies, it’s not going to work for the rest of your audience.
“But I realised that a large part of my audience are parents as well so I do now and again. I talk about him but I never want it to be overkill because it's not that type of show.
“He's an amazing little boy and he brings me a lot of joy.”
There is more on the horizon for Suga as she continues to develop her skills. Her next goal is to mix two of her great passions - food and media.
“I'm halfway through a chef's diploma. I went back to school to Capsicum culinary studio before I had Nelson. I'm halfway through and need to do my in-service and write my exams and then I'll be a qualified chef.
“I'm not sure I want the hard work with being a restaurateur but my diploma will equip me for that - the cooking side, the business side, everything. I chose the diploma specifically for that.
“But once again, in comes multimedia and I'm thinking more along those lines of having some kind of food media - whether it be television or writing.
“With the rise of social media and multimedia it's given us other spaces in which to play, so to speak, and to have an even more instant connection with one's listeners.
“Using these platforms as part of your show, bringing all of the people consuming the media in whatever way they're choosing to consume it - whether it's on their phone, in the car or at their house or place of business - you still have a connection with them. You're still having a conversation with them.
“But obviously the challenge with that is with everyone being able to access the same news, the same pop culture, the same gossip, the trick is to use that content but to shift it up and change it in a way that makes it new.
“It's not reinventing the wheel but it's taking the wheel and seeing how you can change it and package it and provide interesting content for a listener who has perhaps consumed that same piece of media before, but you're doing it in a different way.
“It's important to investigate other avenues of media and to use all the opportunities that come your way. That's really how you survive in this industry. You have to evolve and you have to change, to learn new skills and remain relevant and competitive in an ever-changing and competitive market.”
Congratulations, Suga! Here's to many more years on the airwaves.