With a media career spanning over 10 years, Adelle Onyango is one of the more renowned radio presenters in Kenya.
However, before joining broadcast media, the former Kiss 100 FM presenter had other ambitions in life.
While studying at United States International University Africa(USIU), Adelle was more interested in poetry and public relations.
Speaking in an interview with CTA YouTube, Adelle said she delayed in signing up for public relations classes. She then decided to choose a course in media just because it sounded fancy.
“USIU started a radio station towards my third year in campus and towards that year, I legead on signing up for one of my courses so the ones that I wanted were full so then I had to take, I think it was called integrated media, some fancy name which sounded like it would look nice on a degree saying that I’ve done this,” she recalled.
Adelle added: “Remember my concentration is PR so I’ve not done any broadcast media courses, first day in class we were told you will do a radio bulletin, a TV bulletin.”
The radio bulletin required Adelle to interact with the radio department and as time passed by, she was invited to perform one of her poetry acts on USIU’s Saturday show.
“Because I had to do this radio bulletin I had to interact with the radio studio and so I got to know some people there…with time they got to know I’m a poet. There was a Saturday show for USIU radio and the guy who hosted it invited me to share some poetry in between songs,” Adelle said.
On that particular day, a cohost on USIU radio got stuck in traffic and Adelle ended up presenting the show.
“That day I went, the co-host got stuck in traffic on Thika road so I ended up staying the entire show, so I performed for a while and then I became the co-host, the next Saturday he invited my again,” she said.
Unbeknownst to Adelle, her cohost was recording the shows and sending them to media outlets looking for work.
“..What I didn’t know is this guy was recording all our shows and sending them to media houses and I was there just for fun times…” she recalled.
To her surprise, Adelle received a call from One FM and as they say, the rest is history.
“When One FM was setting up, I received a call from a guy called Tim…he said, I want you as a presenter can you be a radio presenter? I said yes knowing that I did not know anything about radio,” Adelle said.
She went on to have a successful radio career, working at Kiss 100 FM for seven years before she resigned to launch her podcast, PursePective, in 2019.
