Read Antoine Mensah’s 233Live & Radio Journey

Exactly six years ago today, LIVE FM Presenter Antoine Mensah set out on a journey that forever changed his life.

Mensah, together with a few friends launched a weekly radio show which aired on the then Vibe 91.9 FM on Saturdays. Vibe FM is now Live FM, full circle of life right?

They managed to grow their initial idea into an innovative event & media company 233LIVE. Through the group’s collective efforts, they put together events aimed at gaining mainstream appreciation for talented artistes whilst branding popular acts at the same time.

Read below Mensah reminiscing about the past which carved his life.

Read below in Antoine Mensah’s own words (during an interview with this reporter about two years ago) how radio started for him.

Choice FM 2010, right out of PRESEC (Presbyterian Boys Secondary School, Legon). Before that though, I’d been listening to radio but I never really thought I’d be in the industry like I am today. So yeah, early 2010 I was talking to one of my very close friends Esi Hammah about how we’d make a great pair on radio, this was during the one year break after high school.

She got a job with a company that was rebranding Choice FM and recommended me for one of their shows, I did a demo, submitted it and eventually got a shot at it. It wasn’t easy though, I flopped a few times, and had pretty bad experiences with a few big named presenters at the time.

You know there’s this perception in the media industry, the big guns a lot of times feel the young promising ones must go through the same ‘wahala’ they went through before they made it to the top so they tend to put you through a lot of unnecessary stress and pressure.

It’s all good though. You just take it as one of those challenges. There was a lot of discouragement but overall it was an interesting experience; I think overall I went on air two weeks straight at Choice FM doing the Drive Time.

Obviously the managers liked what they heard and kept pushing for me. But at the same time I was working on a ‘once-a-week’ show for Vibe FM (233 LIVE Show), so when that was ready, I made that move.

I hosted that show with Yayra Tay. Mr Lee (then general manager of Vibe FM) heard it, and he loved it, he then sent it to Mike Cooke, (now the COO of Live FM), he liked it as well and put us on air straight away! So every Saturday morning, it was 233 live show. I hosted that show for the next 2 years with a number of female co-hosts, before Vibe switched to Live FM.

During that time I was asked to sit-in for the regular host of Traffic Jam (evening drive) I did, and the next week they told me, it’s your show. It was incredible!

I had the liberty of learning on the job which I did because I was passionate about it, going in and out. I often got a lot of negative comments but I loved where I was, the room it gave me developed my talent and the opportunities it brought my way. I did that two years, my first and second year in University, it was hard but again, I loved every bit of it. Next thing I know, we hear the station has been bought, and it turns into this (Live FM) it’s amazing!