After a retrenchment forced her into stillness, the 34-year-old creative is surrendering, rebuilding and preparing to launch a locally ownedTV channel — this time, from a place of quiet power.
“I’m incredibly delusional.”
Ayanda Mhlongo says it with a laugh, but she means it. Not delusional in the reckless sense — but in the brave, childlike way that allows you to believe you can run a television channel long before anyone hands you one.
For years, that belief carried her.
It carried the young girl from Bergville, raised on love and choice, into boardrooms she wasn’t afraid of. Her father always told her, you must always have a choice. The moment you feel like your back is against the wall and you don’t have one, something is wrong. That philosophy shaped her. It made her bold. It made her relentless. It made her King Aya.
She walked into rooms full of men and matched their energy. She built brands like they were her own children. She was headhunted again and again. Her phone rang. Always.
Until it didn’t.
For the first time in 10 years, she woke up on the first Monday of the year with nowhere to be. No alarm. No plan. No role to perform. Retrenched. Uncertain. In limbo.
“I felt like I’d lost my purpose,” she says. “If I’m not contributing to art, to black creators on the continent, then why am I here?”
It wasn’t about the salary. It was about identity. Her work wasn’t just work — it was her life. Her friendships. Her community. Her rhythm. So when it stopped, she crashed. Not dramatically. But internally. Quietly.
The silence terrified her.
Years ago, when a business venture collapsed in a devastating way — money lost, relationships strained, a partner disappearing — her phone stopped ringing. That silence became a warning sign. So when January arrived and the calls didn’t come, it felt like history repeating itself. Like being forgotten.
And yet, when she posted about her uncertainty, nobody pitied her.
“Cool. So what’s next?” people asked.
“Now start your own thing.”
“Finally, we’ll get jobs.”
The pressure was loud. The expectations heavier than the loss itself. She had just bought a home. She had responsibilities. And now strangers were waiting for her to create employment.
It was overwhelming.
So she did something radical. She surrendered. She went home.
Home is Bergville, resting beneath the Drakensberg mountains, with a river flowing in her backyard. Home is where her gran doesn’t know — or care — what a marketing director does. Home is where she is not King Aya. She is just Aya.
“At home, I’m stripped bare,” she says. “And people just love you more.”
In Johannesburg, she had mastered strength. She had worn masculinity like armour. The name King Aya was born from that — a playful rebellion in spaces that respected kings more than queens. She matched energy. She dominated. She survived.
But at home, none of that mattered.
She prayed by the river. She woke up without alarms. She made breakfast and sat down to eat it — something she had never done before. She cooked. She baked. She realised she wants twins. She started thinking about marriage. About dating with intention. About a farmhouse back home.
“I ended up falling in love with myself,” she says.
Stillness, the thing she feared most, softened her.
She stopped speaking so much. Stopped being everywhere. Stopped saying yes to everything. She realised she didn’t need to perform strength anymore.
“It’s okay for black women to be soft,” she says. “Soft doesn’t mean we’re not aspirational. It doesn’t mean we’re not badasses.”
In that surrender, something aligned.
The very week she decided to go back to school — to figure things out slowly — she received a call. A channel was being built from the ground up. Did she think she could create one?
“For the first time,” she admits, “someone believed in me more than I believed in myself.”
The irony is almost poetic. The retrenchment that felt like destruction became a launching pad. The failed business from years ago had equipped her with the skills she once lacked — not just to create, but to sustain. The fear forced her to confront how deeply this dream mattered.
Now, at 34, she is preparing to launch a new TV channel in March, with the tentative date set for the 19th.
But this time feels different.
The delusion is still there — that wild, unwavering belief. Only now, it’s grounded. Rooted in choice. Anchored in surrender. Powered by softness.
King Aya once commanded rooms loudly. But this season?
This season, she is building quietly. Intentionally. From a place of love, alignment and deep self-knowing.
And perhaps that is the most powerful version of her yet.
