Big Issue ambassador Kwajo Tweneboa launches podcast to reveal famous faces' humble beginnings

Big Issue ambassador Kwajo Tweneboa is launching a new podcast quizzing celebrities on how they overcame adversity to become a success.

Tweneboa, who was named a Big Issue ambassador for housing in April, has become Britain’s biggest housing campaigner over the last five years and has broadened his scope to tackling wider social issues.

He’s explored his own upbringing of homelessness, losing a parent and living in housing disrepair with a TV documentary and book, now he’s interviewing other famous faces in his new podcast called From Humble Beginnings: Life Before Fame.

“It’s something that I’ve wanted to do for a very, very long time now, and it has taken its time to mold into the right podcast and right fit, especially as an extension of the work that I’m doing,” Tweneboa told Big Issue.

“Many people think they know celebrities and the lives of celebrities and who they are. It’s often their limelight and after their fame but we don’t ever speak about the story and the journey before that and some of the social issues and hurdles they’ve had to overcome the people that we know now and reach the heights and success they have.

“I wanted to be able to have those frank conversations, sometimes uncomfortable conversations around their journey, their upbringing, the hurdles they’ve had to overcome while also celebrating them as individuals for reaching their achievements. And for overcoming, persevering and being persistent in order to inspire audiences that I work with on a daily basis.”

Read more:

• Kwajo Tweneboa wants his new documentary to make you angry about the housing crisis
• Activist Kwajo Tweneboa: ‘We’re facing the biggest housing crisis since World War II’
• Public service means putting people first. Landlords like Rushanara Ali shouldn’t be government ministers

Each episode of the show will see Tweneboa in conversation with a different star to understand more about their start to life and the adversity and social issues they encountered.

The first two episodes see Tweneboa interview journalist and Loose Women presenter Charlene White and radio presenter and broadcaster Yinka Bokkini.

It’s a departure for Tweneboa, who has made his name highlighting horror homes on social media and holding landlords to account.

But he told Big Issue that he is hoping a new audience will still feel angry about the injustices that his conversations uncover.

“I feel like I want people who may be facing adversity now to look at these stories, listen to these conversations and feel inspired, feel a sense of hope, feel as though change can happen,” said Tweneboa.

“But also I want them, when necessary, or when they feel it, to be angry at some of the social issues that they were talking about in regards to their childhood, but what we’re still facing now, they should be angry, and rightly so.

“So it’s a mixture between new emotions and old emotions, and trying to tie them together with some of the country’s most famous faces.”

The new show, announced on World Homeless Day, will launch across all popular podcast platforms on a date to be determined. Keep an eye on Tweneboa’s social media accounts for confirmation.

From Humble Beginnings: Life Before Fame is produced in partnership with Insanity Studios, the team behind BBC’s You About? with Roman Kemp and Tom Grennan.

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