How about some chill from government for MacG
Macgyver Mukwevho, better known as “MacG”, the country’s biggest podcaster, has managed to kick up a good old-fashioned cancel mob.
Normally I wouldn’t feel the need to jump on the big social media drama of the day, but things changed when the deputy minister for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, Mmapaseka Steve Letsike, said that the department would refer the podcaster to the portfolio committee in the hopes he would be summoned before Parliament. Shortly thereafter, the chair of Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Communications, Khusela Diko, said that there needed to be urgent frameworks to regulate podcasts.
Let’s back up and see how we got here.
For those who are unfamiliar with the podcast, Mukwevho hosts the country’s biggest podcast titled, “Podcast and Chill with MacG” along with his co-hosts, Sol Phenduka and the mysterious “Ghost Lady” who is heard behind the camera but doesn’t appear on the show.
The show is part news commentary, part interview, part celebrity gossip; think the Joe Rogan Experience or a breakfast DJ show. It forms part of what I would describe as the “shooting the shit” genre of podcast, where one has an experience similar to listening to a couple of friends chatting over drinks at a pub on the weekend.
While the show has a “fact-checker”, the conversation is basically just whatever the hosts have on their mind: wild speculation, jokes, rude comments, references to movies or TV shows, half-baked political commentary and relationship advice flowing freely. While the show isn’t political per se, it has no qualms about veering wildly into politics before turning back to casual chit-chat.
Quite often it has hosted various political guests, including Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, Rob Hersov, Nhlanhla Lux, Errol Musk, Julius Malema and John Steenhuisen. (It was on this show that Steenhuisen made his infamous “roadkill” comment.)
So how did MacG ignite a firestorm?
Love life
On 24 April the show put out an episode where there was comment on the love life of an actress, Minnie Dlamini. They began to speculate about “why she can’t keep a man”, despite being so attractive. At 11 minutes in, Mukwevho says “bro, I’m telling you man, there’s gotta be something wrong with her, like maybe her choochie smells or something bro.” He was immediately met with tut-tutting from his fellow hosts. The show went on to discuss a road rage incident, cast scepticism over the alleged assassination attempt on Paul Mashatile, asked why Soshanguve was so dangerous, criticised Floyd Shivambu for going to the church of Shepherd Bushiri in Malawi, and gave a full-throated endorsement of Burkina Faso’s new young military dictator, Ibrahim Traoré.
Shortly after the airing, a shortened clip of the show went viral showing off this part which drew outrage from many on social media. ” I don’t stand with nonsense. MacG is a piece of shit. Anyone defending him after uttering such derogatory remarks about Minnie Dlamini and women in general should be ashamed of themselves. MacG must be cancelled.”
Fellow podcasters like DJ Fresh, who says MacG is his “boy”, called his comments out of line. An NGO called Women For Change said his comment was, “vile and dehumanising”, and that his podcasts “promoted harmful narratives disguised as entertainment”. Professor Boitumelo Senokoane from UNISA wrote an opinion piece for The Star, where he claimed that the comments were a reflection of “deeply rooted societal norms that continue to undermine and objectify women, particularly in the media,” and linked them to the high levels of violence against women in South Africa. Mbali Mbatha in City Press wrote that MacG’s legacy will “taint little boys for generations to come.”
“Unconstitutional”
Things soon kicked up a notch last Friday when the deputy minister for Women, Youth, and Persons with Disabilities, Mmapaseka Steve Letsike, said that what MacG said was “unconstitutional” and would be reported to the South African Police Service (SAPS), the Commission for Gender Equality, the South African Human Rights Commission, and the Broadcasting Complaints Commission of South Africa for investigation. Furthermore, the deputy minister declared MacG would be brought before the portfolio committee to account for his statement. Failure to appear when summoned before a parliamentary portfolio committee can result in a fine or imprisonment.
Shortly thereafter, Khusela Diko called for regulating podcasts.
Since all this transpired, it looks as if, mostly with the help of the EFF, the push to bring Mukwevho before the portfolio committee has collapsed, and social media has seen significant pushback from his supporters.
There are three main concerns this entire episode raises for me.
The first, as has been noted by many South Africans, is the incredible level of selective outrage on display. Every week, we South Africans inflict a host of horrors on one another. Since April 24th , a 78-year-old farmer was hacked to death with pangas[1], a man burned down the shack of his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend with them both in the shack[2] , a prosecutor was murdered in a hit[3] , a female police officer killed her own 10-year-old daughter and shot herself[4] , a couple were arrested for going drinking when their children locked in a shack burned to death[5], and four prison wardens were suspended after allegations they beat an inmate to death[6].
Shrugged off
Not a single one of these stories prompted anything close to the horror or outrage seen on social media and in the opinion pages, and yet they represent far greater crises. It seems to be little more than pearl-clutching, while incidents that require real moral outrage and government action are shrugged off as normal. As for the claim that MacG makes gross and rude comments about a woman and therefore women suffer widespread violence, well, that’s the sort of stretch that only those who subscribe to the mysticism of critical theory could believe.
Personally, I do think what Mukwevho said was nasty and beneath his own ability and talent. He can be much funnier than this. I also don’t have a problem with people who think it’s a good idea to call for a boycott, or whatever. However, bringing the power of the state down on him, and dedicating so much supposedly serious analysis to this issue while we are numb to so many other issues, is not just a dangerous attack on the right of free speech, but an insult to the millions of South Africans who urgently need their serious social issues addressed.
My second concern is that the puritanical impulse to punish MacG could well provide cover for the ANC to impose controls over the currently thriving podcast space. The blossoming of podcasts in the South African media space in recent years has created a far more hostile and critical media atmosphere than the ANC is used to, and the MacG podcast with its slightly EFFish outlook on SA is part of a broader trend of especially younger people moving away from the ANC. There are strong political incentives for the ANC to clamp down on this sector, and using “codes of conduct” and “industry watch dogs” constrain and contain the potential for anti-ANC agitation on these platforms.
Hobbyhorse
Lastly, this whole episode gives me an opportunity to climb on a hobbyhorse of mine, that being that we seem to have lost the ability to deal with the media appropriately. Hearing that an entertainment shock jock like MacG has said something gross or stupid should invoke an eye roll and little more.
MacG’s podcast has done some important stuff by interviewing many of South Africa’s important players, but only because it does so in such a casual, unserious, and often uninformed way. It allows our politicians and celebrities to relax and shoot from the hip, which often allows insight into them and their thinking that we don’t usually see. This whole approach only works if you have a host who is rude, charismatic, relaxed and more controversial than you. It allows you to open up and get past the PR training and message discipline. The cost is that sometimes some reprehensible stuff will be said.
So let’s all just chill on MacG.
This article was first published on the Daily Friend.
[1] https://www.snl24.com/dailysun/news/limpopo-farmer-brutally-killed-at-stoffkraal-farm-in-roossenekal-20250504
[2] https://www.snl24.com/dailysun/news/kzn-baby-daddy-allegedly-sets-baby-mamas-house-on-fire-20250503
[3] https://www.snl24.com/dailysun/news/eastern-cape-district-prosecutor-killed-in-cold-blood-near-his-home-20250502
[4] https://www.snl24.com/dailysun/news/kzn-police-sergeant-allegedly-shoots-daughter-10-before-attempted-suicide-in-umkomaas-flat-20250502
[5] https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2025-05-05-couple-arrested-after-their-infant-and-toddler-die-in-shack-fire/
[6] https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/south-africa/2025-05-01-four-wardens-suspended-after-death-of-inmate-at-goodwood-correctional-facility/
