The Summer of Uncle Waffles

With overnight success comes a slow burnout

Kanye West (in his more sober moments) remarked that major sports stars are provided with the physical medical attention they need to allow them to perform at the top of their game. In the same conversation he says that he has been performing at the top of the music game without much attention paid to his mental well-being . At the center of this article are questions about whether Uncle Waffles is equipped with the tools to help her navigate the new life that she has been thrown into.

One thing South Africa is notorious for is a viral moment. It is almost gospel in this time and age that for anyone to get any sense of notoriety, they have to have a viral moment. From Moshe Ndiki, Fareida “Pharoafi” Metsileng to Killer Kau and Coconut Kelz, the list is endless.

The latest installment of South Africa’s internet sensations is DJ, tv presenter and model — Uncle Waffles.

In October of 2021, Twitter account @unclewaffles posted a video of herself playing a set at a party. In the video, Uncle Waffles is playing an amapinao set and dancing to a song while entertaining an enthralled crowd that seemed to have been mesmerized by her.

Soon after the video was posted it trended across Twitter, Instagram and TikTok. The viral moment earned Uncle Waffles a significant growth in followers across social media platforms. Less than a month after the viral moment, Uncle Waffles is verified on Twitter, has 270 000 Instagram followers including Drake and has interviewed on British radio shows.

In interviews, Uncle Waffles who’s real name is Lungelihle Zwane, revealed that she is booked until next year. She has been going from gig to gig since her viral moment and has scored herself international gigs having been booked in Ghana and Botswana just to mention a few. Event organizers and clubs are falling over themselves trying to secure an Uncle Waffles booking.

From Instagram, we see that people genuinely enjoy her sets. The music she plays is not necessarily unique or niche and her mixing skills are not extraordinary either. What does differentiate Waffles from the rest is a mixture of the kind of music she plays (popular genre-amapiano) and the vibe she brings to her sets. It is difficult to pinpoint exactly what makes her unique — it’s just a vibe thing, you know?

At the current trajectory that Uncle Waffles is on, it is clear that she is going to be the most popular music act of summer 2021/22 but I am deeply concerned about her well-being.

It goes without saying that Uncle Waffles is one of the hardest working DJs in South Africa right now. For someone who only recently got into deejaying and has struck massive success very early in her career, this is a recipe for burnout.

The benefit of achieving gradual success is building a stamina to be able to function consistently when you get to the top. It is unclear whether Uncle Waffles has built up the stamina that is required for her to perform consistently at the level she is on right now.

Because she is currently hot property and everyone is trying to get her to play at their events, the easy route would be for her management to just book her out. It is no doubt that her booking fee is very high right now and her management stands to make a lot of money from her this summer. I sincerely hope whoever is in charge of her schedule is mindful of the fact that she needs rest and cannot perform at this level for the entire summer without burning out.

As someone who blew up on social media, it is obvious that Uncle Waffles is a constant topic of conversation on social media, especially Twitter. One of the biggest selling points of Twitter is that anyone with a device and internet connection can say what ever they want. Uncle Waffles, unfortunately, is at the receiving end of those opinions. In the short space of time that she has been famous, she has been the topic of major conversations, some that accused her management and other male persons in the music industry of exploiting her.

Her social media has grown so big that she has had to hand it over to her management. We know that social media can be a cruel place, and even worse for a 21-year old black woman with newfound internet success. In her first YouTube video, posted in May 2020, Uncle Waffles mentions that she struggles with some form of anxiety. As she continues to make waves in the world of deejaying, it is absolutely vital that her management invests in her mental health which will equip her with tools to navigate this new world.

A YouTuber who once worked in the music industry in New York shared that she met Ari Lennox just as she was about to sign a record deal and told her to get a therapist before she gets too famous. Unfortunately there was no opportunity for Uncle Waffles to get this advice however, I would strongly advise her management to ensure that she gets mental healthcare now that she has gotten this level of fame.

No one wants to see a situation in which she goes to therapy after burning out or suffering a nervous breakdown.

There have been older and more experienced women musicians — specifically DJ Zinhle and Thandiswa Mazwai — reach out to Uncle Waffles on social media, offering her a space to “just talk”. No one knows how patriarchal and misogynist the music industry can be towards young talented women more than DJ Zinhle and Thandiswa, both of whom were the first class of women in deejaying and Kwaito respectively. The kind of support they can give Uncles Waffles in terms of navigating fame and being managed by a team of mostly cishet men is invaluable. Again, one can only hope she takes the lifeline and actually reaches out to these women for support.

Uncle Waffles absolutely needs the wisdom and knowledge of the women who have gone before her if she is to survive this moment that seems to be very demanding of her.

On top of burnout and the devastating effects that fame and hyper-visibility can have on one’s mental health, there’s also the money issue. As mentioned earlier, Uncle Waffles is hot property and is booked and busy. This means her management, which is a small company that has not been in existence for long, is making big bank from the Uncle Waffles hype.

Obviously the company’s financial information and Uncle Waffles’ contract are confidential but we have seen many instances of managers who work artists like dogs and only give them a small piece of the pie. To this day Zahara cannot enjoy the full fruit of her earlier success because of this very thing. Uncle Waffles is still very new to the world of deejaying and at the same time making more money than she has ever made in her life.

One of the things that will deter her from performing consistently at this level is if she feels shortchanged by her management or that she is not seeing the economic benefits of her hard work. One can only hope that her management is dealing with her ethically when it comes to money and that she is enjoying her fair share of the fruits of her hard work.

In order for Uncle Waffles to continue performing consistently at this level, she needs to be equipped with a management team that one, earnestly has her best interests at heart in the long game and is genuinely invested in her mental, physical and emotional wellbeing.

A lot of responsibility is placed on Uncle Waffles’ management fully cognizant of the fact that they have never had to manage an artist this big before. In as much as this is a new world for her, it is new to them as well. But ultimately, whether the Uncle Waffles brand lives of dies will be dependent on their ability to maneuver through this new world.