African English voice over services

Not really. Nigerian, Ghanaian, Kenyan, Ugandan and South African English are distinct and listeners place each other immediately. What does exist is a pan-African read that strips the strongest national markers so the recording travels — useful for development, health and multi-country corporate work, and wrong for advertising that has to feel local. Tell us the countries and we will tell you which you need.

No, and it is audible immediately. Most African varieties of English are syllable-timed, giving each syllable roughly equal weight, where British English compresses the unstressed ones. That rhythm is what makes the accents recognisable, and an imitation lands as impersonation. We cast native speakers and do not bend on it.

Plain, warm and credible, paced for people who may be listening on a low-quality speaker in a noisy place. The polished commercial delivery that a voice actor brings by default from advertising actively works against content that is asking the listener to do something. Tell us the purpose and we brief the read for it.

It depends on your target market. Nigerian and Ghanaian English are the two largest and most widely recognised varieties, with Sierra Leonean, Liberian and Cameroonian English also available. We advise on the right fit for your audience before anything is recorded.

Whichever matches your market, because the two are not substitutes. They are separate varieties, shaped by different colonial histories and different indigenous-language substrates, and share little beyond both being forms of English. For Nigeria, Ghana and the rest of the region, West African English is what this page covers; for content aimed at South Africa, we run a dedicated South African English service. Tell us the countries you are targeting and we will point you to the right roster.

A single-country read is usually back within a working day or two. A multi-market set takes longer to schedule than to record, since the actors are in different time zones — your project manager fixes the dates up front.

The number turns on how many countries you are actually addressing. One levelled read licensed across the continent costs far less than four national versions, and there are campaigns where the levelled read is genuinely the right call — and others where it quietly fails in every market at once. We will tell you which yours is before quoting. The figure itself is a session fee covering studio, engineer and direction, plus a licence sized to the media, and it comes with our Price Match Promise.

Start with the countries, not the script. Nigerian, Ghanaian, Kenyan and Ugandan English are separate accents with separate listeners, and the shortlist we build depends entirely on which of them you are talking to. Once that is settled we record in London or through our network on the continent, with one project manager across the whole set.

A great deal of it is development and public-health communication — vaccination drives, agricultural extension, financial-inclusion campaigns — alongside radio advertising, telecoms and banking content, mining and energy safety material, eLearning for pan-African workforces, and documentary narration about the continent that ought to be voiced by someone from it.

Yes — and often the more useful question is whether English is enough. Plenty of campaigns reach further in Swahili, Hausa or Yoruba than in English, and we record all of them, so we can price the comparison rather than assume it.

Since 2008 we have cast African English for NGOs, development programmes, broadcasters and brands entering the continent — and the lesson that keeps repeating is that African audiences are more sensitive to a wrong accent, not less, because so much of the content aimed at them has historically been voiced elsewhere. We cast from the country, and a native director sits in.

Yes, and for this one we would push you towards a casting rather than the demos. Hearing a Nigerian and a Kenyan actor read the same lines of your copy makes the choice obvious in a way that separate showreels never do. It costs nothing.

WAV, MP3 or AIFF, per-take or mixed, mastered for the platform — including the lower bitrates that still matter for radio and for feature-phone distribution in several of these markets.

Less than people expect: the script, or the draft of it, its total running time or word count, where the recording will be used, and the date you need it by. If the script is not signed off yet, send the draft anyway — we would rather quote on what exists than wait for a version that eats your deadline. A named project manager comes back with an itemised quote, normally within four working hours.

More than half of enquiries get a reply within thirty minutes during office hours (Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm UK time), and the itemised quote normally follows within four working hours. After that you have one dedicated project manager who owns the job from brief to final file — not a ticket queue, and not a different name on every email. If it is easier, call +44 207 095 5730 and ask for them by name.

Yes, and it is one of the commonest reasons people get in touch. Tell us it is for a pitch and you get a figure you can put in front of your own client, itemised so it stands up to being picked apart, with no obligation and no follow-up sales calls if the pitch goes elsewhere. If it lands, the quote still holds and we already know the project.