Nota’s outrageous comment highlights pervading misogyny

SHINGAI DARANGWA

Nota Baloyi has become somewhat of a comedian, not by choice or profession, but because his antics on social media are often comical.

ALMOST every year we have the same conversation around comedy. “Sometimes good art should make us uncomfortable”. “Sometimes bad people can make good art”. Late last year, many cited these or similar quotes in defence of Dave Chappelle when he stirred controversy with his transphobic and sexist jokes during the last comedy special of his long-running Netflix deal.

Nota Baloyi has become somewhat of a comedian – not by choice or profession but because of his antics on social media.

His latest act of comedy was far from humorous though. In May, Nota joined the Nkululeko n Cultr podcast, using this as an opportunity to slut-shame blogger and content creator Mihlali Ndamase.

“The women celebrities in this country, most of them are sex workers,” he started.

“If they have to sleep with producers… if you see someone that’s ahead and they’re getting whatever, who are they sleeping with at Multichoice?”

In a clip that went viral, Nota added later on in the interview: “Imagine there are some guys who think Mihlali is attractive, and all I think is that ngiyamtenga (I can buy her).

“And they don’t understand that if Mihlali is for sale that means she’s an object. Which means you can kill her if you want to. It’s like buying a dog, you can put it down.”

This was such an egregious statement that the notoriously private Berita, who at that point we understood to be his wife, took to Twitter to call him out. She also dropped the bombshell that they had split.

She said she had been quiet because her safety had been a “huge concern” for her, before going on to describe him as “irresponsible, reckless and unruly”.

Nota later Tweeted, “They say a man will embarrass you, a woman will humiliate you… No matter what happens between you, keep it tidy!”

It was an unsurprisingly tone-deaf statement from a man who’s quickly establishing a reputation as an out-of-touch social media commentator.

A day before Berita’s statement, Nota had been a speaker in one of Musa Khawula’s Twitter Spaces when someone allied to SA Polling gave him a bit of his own medicine. “These people are past you, they’re better than you,” SA Polling said, referring to Mihlali and the other celebrities Nota had insulted in the past. “Whether they sleep with whoever — they can even sleep with your dad – but they’ve surpassed you.”

When Nota tried to speak over him, SA Polling responded, “I don’t know who you think you’re going to talk over, I’m not your wife, you better wait until I’m done speaking.”

Even YouTube troll Slik Talk upbraided him, stating, “You can’t talk about people’s wives and people’s girlfriends and then when they talk about your wife you get upset. It doesn’t work like that. See me, people can talk about my mother, my father, my brothers and sisters, my kids, I don’t care because I know I deserve it.”

While Slik Talk has a point, that doesn’t excuse his own misogynistic remarks. Much like MacG, for whom he has expressed admiration, he often uses vile language when discussing women.

“Uncle Waffles, you are Drake’s African fantasy, that’s what you are,” he said a few months ago. “This man is only looking for one thing and one thing only. Drake is trying to smash, that’s it…..”

It’s a page straight out of the MacG playbook. For much of the past year, Nota has delivered countless moments of incoherent and mind-numbing commentary on a host of entertainment and lifestyle topics as he seemingly shifts into a role as a pop culture commentator.

For a man of his intelligence and calibre in the entertainment industry (Nota’s work managing Kwesta and helping him become one of the country’s biggest artists is beyond reproach), I’ve not spotted much nuance in his commentary. If there’s brilliance in Nota, Slik Talk and MacG’s work, I must be missing it.

Nota Baloyi. Pictures: Instagram