When Kudakwashe “Kudi” Maradzika speaks about storytelling, it’s never just about plot.
It’s about power, reclaiming African agency, and crafting worlds where the unseen are finally centered. Her latest creation, Bad Influencer, a Netflix Original set to premiere globally in 2025, is no exception. It’s a crime drama, yes, but also a layered meditation on survival, motherhood, and the moral ambiguity of hustle culture in South Africa.
The show follows BK, a small-time con artist and single mother played by Jo-Anne Reyneke, who teams up with a wannabe luxury influencer, Pinky (Cindy Mahlangu), to sell counterfeit handbags online. What begins as a desperate scheme quickly spirals into a high-stakes game involving criminal syndicates and law enforcement. The cast is a masterstroke of range and resonance: from beloved screen veterans to real-life media personalities like Lerato Nxumalo and Kamo Pule, and even former Miss Universe Zozibini Tunzi, who makes her series debut. Kudi affirms, “They’re performers. And they held their own.”
But Bad Influencer is more than its cast. It’s a culmination of Kudi’s multidisciplinary vision—a vision honed over 15 years across screen, stage, voice, and digital media. As founder of Lincoln Green Media, she’s built an award-winning production company that develops African intellectual property across formats: film, television, comic books, video games, and even web3-adjacent platforms. Her work has reached global audiences through Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Showmax, MTV, BET, and Comedy Central. While her accolades include a Forty Under 40 Africa Award, multiple SAFTA wins, and an International Emmy nomination for the Mandela Project, it’s her creative ethos that truly sets her apart.
“I tell stories about underdogs in worlds unseen,” she shares. “People who are scrambling and surviving, who are faced with a choice and that choice transforms them.” That ethos is alive in BK’s character, a woman doing morally questionable things not for greed, but for her child. “The most disenfranchised figure in Africa is the single mother,” Kudi explains. “They’re invisible in many ways, but their story is one of survival.”
The show’s genesis is as compelling as its narrative. Kudi developed Bad Influencer through the Realness x Netflix Episodic Lab, a prestigious program that selected six African creatives from over 400 applicants. Her story was the one Netflix chose to develop. She quit her job, hired a team of writers, and spent 18 months shaping the series. “I’ve seen each episode at least seven times,” she muses. “In edits, assemblies, post-production. I’m excited, and terrified, for people to finally see it.”
Her writing process is deeply collaborative, yet fiercely intentional. Dialogue is crafted to sound like real people—“voices you hear in the street,” And while she spearheaded the project, she’s quick to credit her team, including Gambit Films (known for Blood & Water and Unseen), for their partnership in bringing the show from page to screen.
Kudi’s aesthetic blends ancestral memory, speculative fiction, satire, and socio-political critique. Her Afro-modernist lens challenges Western narrative structures, offering alternative histories and futures. She’s currently developing a speculative novel imagining an Africa untouched by colonialism, and a feature film, Death and Its Friends, supported by the NFVF. “I’m interested in what an idea looks like across mediums,” she says before adding. “TV, comic books, novels, it’s all part of expanding my repertoire as a creative.”
Kudi is far from done. While she can’t yet reveal details, she’s set to appear in a major global fantasy franchise, another showcase of her seemingly never-ending talent. Meanwhile, the second season of Bad Influencer is already in development, a rare achievement for an African woman showrunner. Yet, for Kudi, it is not about rarity, but resonance. “I want people to see themselves. To feel seen and to know that our stories matter.”
