Joseph Nti is very good at socially blending in.
For the past five years, Joseph, the host of the popular podcast show Sincerely Accra, has entertained listeners with his blend of comedic quips, vox pop segments, and listener questions.
Cut together with sound effects, beats, and Nti’s playful narration, the show has been a big hit with Ghanaian millennials and Gen Zs.
You wouldn’t know it if you first met him, but beneath the seemingly outgoing personality lies an introvert who has become very good at masking.
While he effortlessly conducts vox pops at social events, his internal monologue might resemble someone ready to go home and recharge his social battery. (Just ask any introvert)
Since the show’s 2018 debut, Joseph and his team have produced over 100 episodes, evolving from audio-only to a video format and, on occasion, live in-person shows.
While content creation in Ghana might still be grind for most, Sincerely Accra has enjoyed relative success, including a partnership with a local podcast network, acquisition of brand deals, and an investment from Spotify.
However, the podcast show is not Joseph’s day job. He supplements his lifestyle (and bank account) with creative work in the corporate world.
But after being one of the prominent faces on the Mount Rushmore of Ghanaian podcasts for several years, is Joseph Nti still having fun?
Creating “The Ink” Magazine at Ashesi
The “Sincerely Accra” podcast wasn’t Joseph’s first foray into media creation.
His path to creative stardom began at Ashesi University, a liberal arts institution in Ghana, where he enrolled in 2011 without much foreknowledge.
“I actually wanted to go to Tech”, Joseph recalls in an online interview with The Labari Journal.
“But my mother bought the [Ashesi] forms and she was like, ‘fill this form’. This is the school you’re going to.”
Despite his father’s concerns about the cost—favoring the more affordable University of Ghana at Legon—Nti’s mother insisted on funding his education herself.
“We could not apply for a scholarship. And my father has nine children and he was against me going to Ashesi because he felt like it was too expensive.
We had a little situation where my mom was like, she’s just going to pay for the whole thing herself. So that kind of put a lot of pressure on me to excel.”
At Ashesi, Nti made his mark when he launched The Ink, a digital magazine, in his third year.
The inspiration came to him while preparing for a foreign exchange interview with Babson College, a university in the United States. The university, which had its own student newspaper, catalyzed Joseph to kick-start Ashesi’s newspaper.
But to start a physical newspaper, there was a cost hurdle.
“Newspaper meant print. We didn’t have those resources. So it occurred to me that I would do a digital magazine,” Joseph said when he first thought of the idea.
Soon, he assembled a small team, made up of some of his colleagues, to help with different aspects of the magazine, including photography and column writing.
However, another hurdle was getting contributions for the magazine’s first issue.
“We sent a call out for people to contribute. The first one was difficult because everybody was like, ‘What is this?!’
So we had to internally generate content.”
The first issue was eventually published. It featured model and blogger Akpene Diata Hoggar on the cover.
“She was our very first cover model. I literally just used my friends at the time because we’re cool,” Joseph said about roping in Hoggar for the first issue. (Hoggar would later go on to win the 2018 Miss Universe Ghana pageant)
It was a decision that paid off.
“I remember after the first issue came out, everybody wanted to be on the cover. The next time we did the issue, lots of people were sending in their stories.”
By the time Nti graduated from Ashesi, The Ink had published six issues for campus students.
Off The Top
After graduating, Joseph interned at Viasat 1, a local media company where he worked on shows like The One Show and gained hands-on experience in television production. This experience would be useful in helping craft a YouTube show called Off The Top in 2017.
Blending pop culture and trivia, Off The Top was mainly produced by Joseph and some of his former Ink Magazine team.
Filmed initially in a friend’s home against an iconic orange wall, the show featured an ensemble cast of five men and five women engaging in witty and relatable banter.
Joseph’s inspiration for the show was from Ghanaian shows like “It Takes Two“, “Agoro“, and an infamous UK YouTube show called “Back Chat“.
“I loved the idea of an ensemble cast, like Back Chat London, but without the bickering,” he said.
The show was a hit with online viewers, with almost all of its 10-episode seasons averaging more than 10,000 views on YouTube.
Nti funded the first two seasons out of pocket, pouring his salary into production while editing late into the night.
“I loved it, but it was exhausting,” he admits. “We’d shoot entire seasons over three weekends, aligning 20 people’s schedules, with catering and 40 people on set. It was like a party.”
The show’s success led to brand deals by season three, allowing Nti to move production to a studio with a white wall backdrop.
But the grind was relentless. “As soon as one season ended, I was planning the next—new themes, new questions, new promos,” he says.
The show ran from 2017 to 2020, when COVID-19 disrupted production. “We shot one session for the new season, but then we couldn’t meet again,” Nti recalls.
However, the break gave him time to reflect on the stress of producing the show.
“The pause revealed how much the show had consumed his life. I realized how nice it was to rest.”
Before going on hiatus, Joseph and his team produced 50 episodes over five seasons for Off The Top.
But Joseph’s swan song in media would be Sincerely Accra, which brought him more into the Ghanaian limelight.
Building Sincerely Accra, Spotify Co-Sign and Death Threats
Podcasting exploded in Ghana after 2020 due to COVID-19 restrictions. But before podcast shows became wildly popular, Joseph was already rising on the charts with “Sincerely Accra“.
The show debuted in May 2018. It’s a fast, colorful, and unapologetically Ghanaian entertainment show that leans into the quirks of local urban life: dating disasters, nightlife gossip, and election-year banter.
Episodes, usually between 30 minutes and an hour, can feel like overhearing a lively conversation in a crowded “trotro” bus — only sharper, funnier, and more deliberate.
Initially audio-only, the show would transition to video despite Nti’s reluctance.
“I remember when podcasts started going video, and they said we have to do video. I fought them for a year,” he said.
“But at a point, all the podcasts were going on video, and it’s like, if you can’t beat them, you have to join them.”
Unlike the high-maintenance Off the Top, Sincerely Accra was less demanding, allowing Nti to lean into it as his creative outlet.
The show shot to new heights during the COVID lockdown, boosting listenership and increasing Joseph’s visibility, along with his co-creator and producer, Kwame Asante Ofori.
One of the biggest factors for the show’s boost was listener letters. Listeners would send in commentary about their love life, dating, and requests for advice in life and “adulting.”
“We got crazy letters during lockdown, and it blew up on Twitter,” Nti says on the show’s viral ascent.
The show also got a boost after partnering with Gold Coast Report (GCR), a Ghanaian podcast network, which helped with marketing, promotion, and other resources.
In April 2023, Spotify announced that Sincerely Accra was a recipient of its Africa Podcast fund.
Spotify’s co-sign further elevated the podcast, which now follows a structured production schedule with pre-recorded episodes and annual December parties.
However, public recognition of the show, which was well deserved, brought some negative attention.
“I was getting death threats and stuff,” Joseph recalls after an interview with an infamous Ghanaian TikTok influencer.
Recently, the social media landscape has shifted to producing more “outrageous” and sensational content, boosted by monetisation of impressions on platforms like X and YouTube.
But Joseph is wary of all the online exposure. “I don’t want to play that game of making a mockery of myself for attention,” he says of the recent trend of sensational content.
Balancing Creativity with Personal Goals
It’s an open secret that most Ghanaian creatives usually have regular day jobs, using their salary to fund their creative side gigs.
In 2019, after a year of unemployment following freelance ad work for brands like Uber and Origin, Nti joined the corporate world.
Having a stable income helped boost morale and enabled Joseph to live more comfortably in Accra, a city that can have an impact on young people’s expenses.
Like many young creatives, Joseph is working on a stable personal life while balancing his creative endeavors and achieving future personal goals like most others, including owning a house and a car.
“You have to check these boxes before you can focus on creative dreams,” he says.
Although he doesn’t see Sincerely Accra ending anytime soon, Joseph says his heart is still in creativity and storytelling.
“I’ve always loved film. I want to make movies, series, and shows without centering myself.”
Recently, he bought a laptop to resume editing, signaling a return to creating on his own terms.
“I don’t want to announce anything and put pressure on myself,” he says. “But I’m definitely not going to be 100% corporate forever.”
As Sincerely Accra enters its eighth year, Nti is exploring new elements for the podcast, teasing changes for 2026. “We’re having conversations about introducing something fresh,” he says, keeping details under wraps.
While he admits the show has somewhat become “routine”, its impact on its listeners keeps him going.
“I would say I have struggled in the past with wanting to quit and stuff like that,” he says.
“But you keep meeting people and they tell you how important the podcast is to them.”
