DJ Tira’s support of Mampintsha’s new single sparks tribalism debate

South Africans took to social media to voice their anger after Mandla Maphumulo, popularly known as Mampintsha, released a Gqom track in which he sings Kukhona iy’ngane la endlini, which loosely translates to there are children in the house. The words were spoken by Mampintsha in the assault video that shook Mzansi early this month.

Mampintsha has since apologised for assaulting Babes Wodumo.

Though South Africans had not forgotten Mampintsha, he was again highly criticised for making a song out of the assault, and was accused of making fun of Babes Wodumo’s pain. He trended on Twitter the whole weekend for the song.

DJ Tira also trended for supporting the song. He posted a video of himself with his wife and another woman jamming to the song. The DJ received a backlash from those who accused him of having known about Mampintsha’s alleged abusive behaviour towards girlfriend Babes Wodumo.

But Tira said South Africans were being unfair to him because he had never “enabled” abuse, and further said he had reached out to the Wololo hitmaker.

He said at the time: “It is with great sadness we wake up to yet another report of domestic violence when our country is already full of so much shame. It is also with great sadness I have to deal with the backlash of this issue as a third party continuously being dragged by the South African public.

“I strongly and wholeheartedly stand by my belief and conviction that no man and I repeat, no man should ever lay a hand on a woman, no matter what the circumstances, as men, we are raised by women, nature by women, loved by women and we should never forget that.

“My heart is really sad for Babes Wodumo and no woman should have to go through this. For those of you who know me, you know that I have never and would never enable abuse. I have since reached out to Babes Wodumo, who is at home safe and sound.”

Also read: Ukhozi FM’s song of the year sparks tribalism debate

However, things descended into chaos when poet Ntsiki Mazwai slammed Mampintsha’s single and went on further to ask which tribe in South Africa had the most abusive men.

A debate on tribalism then ensued, with some pointing out that abuse was not a “tribe thing” but a problem across all cultures and races.

These were some of the arguments:

DJ Tira’s support of Mampintsha’s new single sparks tribalism debate

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