iQHAWE, the magazine that celebrates the crew behind South Africa's creatives

South African media celebrated famous faces; behind-the-scenes creatives had no archive, and emerging talent had no way into the industry.

Flip the cover formula: celebrate the people shining the spotlight — photographers, designers, directors — not the celebrities in it.

Started at university in 2019, now a magazine, agency and NPO; print became a once-a-year coffee-table book — the first print issue sold out at Decorex 2024 — with digital covers through the year; Issue 14 profiles fashion entrepreneurs in three cities.

Fourteen issues in, featured acts like DJ duo Nouveux went from an alley gig to working with Nike; the first print run sold out; Création Africa selected the company for backing and mentoring.

iQHAWE — 'hero' in isiZulu and isiXhosa — was started in 2019 by Renaè Mangena, then a university student trying to find a way into the creative industry, with Anastatia Nkhuna. The premise: magazines put the actress on the cover, not the people shining the light on her. iQHAWE put the photographers, cinematographers, directors and designers of Joburg's scene on the cover instead, and treated their stories as an archive worth keeping regardless of where they had been.

It grew into a media platform, agency and non-profit. Print economics were hard — two years of pitching for funding and a T-shirt fundraiser — so the model shifted to one physical issue a year, as a coffee-table book ('the magazine is not even a magazine'), with digital covers through the year. The first print issue was tested small at Decorex 2024 and sold out. Issue 14, backed by Création Africa, the French Institute of South Africa's creative-entrepreneur programme, will profile fashion entrepreneurs in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban.

The archive effect is the point: DJ duo Nouveux of Soundset Sunday were 'still just DJs' playing in an alley when iQHAWE first featured them; when the magazine returned to their story, they were working with Nike. Next, the founders want their newly launched NPO to become an incubator for young women entering the industry, plus more opportunities for women and black creatives, and a possible capsule range with one of Issue 14's designers.

The founders were their own audience: shut out of an industry that celebrated fame, they built the entry point they needed and documented the people usually left out.

Print economics forced focus — monthly issues were unsustainable, so one annual coffee-table book, tested small before mass production, kept the archive alive.

Featuring emerging talent created compounding value: subjects grew from alley gigs to Nike campaigns, giving the magazine a track record and a network.

Documenting a scene's unsung makers builds an archive, a business and a community at once — the magazine's subjects became its network and its proof.

Issue 14 launches as a coffee-table book with launches and pop-ups across three cities, Création Africa backing and a possible designer capsule collaboration; the NPO is becoming an incubator for young women and black creatives. The trade-off the founders accept is salaried stability: leaving the nine-to-five for a publication that is, as Mangena puts it, working 24/7.