As’gqoke with Bafana Mthembu

The first rule of the amabhinca aesthetic is to keep it clean — that’s the main lesson I learn in my style tutorial from content creator Bafana Mthembu about the niche sartorial subculture.  

Amabhinca, of course, gets its cultural influences predominantly from taxi drivers and maskandi recording artists. But in the past year the 31-year-old from Orlando East in Soweto has reignited amabhinca into a trendy and Instagrammable way of dressing for style-conscious youngsters.   

Thanks to content creators such as Mthembu and musicians Sjava and Big Zulu, who use a combination of social media and sound, the influence now extends beyond the borders of taxi ranks and Zulu heritage to all corners of Mzansi. To my surprise, my nephew Neo, in Limpopo, opened my eyes to how far that reach had gone when in early August he attended his matric dance with amabhinca as his source of inspiration.  

“Being clean means taking care of yourself, as there is a perception that guys don’t,” Mthembu elaborates.  

The next tip from Mthembu is that Brentwood trousers need to become a wardrobe staple. Yes, the 50-year-old heritage brand, which uses 100% Venetian wool, is experiencing a resurgence with Gen Z. It’s not by accident that the open hem makes alterations easier than with average trousers.

That informs lesson number three — you have to have a tailor on speed dial. “I’ve seen some wear it loose fit and make it look cool. For me, how I’ve looked at the pants is that they have given you the shape of pants and then the freedom to tailor them as you wish with the zigzag finishing,” Mthembu says.

Then come the accessories, which include classic Omega sandals or Carvela loafers. But, as with the last tip, Mthembu stresses that style is about attitude, so individuality is paramount in completing the look.   

Blowing up on social media came at intervals for Mthembu. As early as 2012 he was already a viral trendsetter. As part of the style crew Khumbula — together with influencers Andile Biyana and David Maledimo — he used to thrift clothes, have them tailored, and then styled photographs in disadvantaged areas. At their peak, they even showcased their work in museums. But that all stopped in 2016, as they matured and grew apart.  

“The initial narration was the use of clothing as weapons,” he explains. “I stand to be corrected, but in developing countries what tends to happen is people don’t want to look like their problems. So, they will buy clothes that don’t showcase that they are going through a lot.”  

Content-creation series True Stories with Skhumba followed, taking its cue from the comedian’s funny clips on radio with the late Bob Mabena on Kaya FM and Mthembu reenacting them. “It blew up to a point that Skhumba [Hlope] got a hold of it, but I couldn’t keep up the momentum, so I left,” Mthembu remembers.  

Last year was a turning point for Mthembu. He launched the new series Asgqoke on Instagram, to pay homage to homegrown sub-cultures such as skhothane, pantsula, and amabhinca. When the first video spotlighting amabhinca went viral, it became the sole focus of his curation. “I felt like there were a lot of ‘get ready with me’ videos online, but there was no sense of representation of these sub-cultures I grew up around,” he says. “Another reason I started was when I was doing research at work [a marketing and brand agency], I would struggle to get points of reference when I was searching for a cool taxi driver. They have always been associated with violence and the minute you search ‘taxi drivers’ you would bump into a large pool of pictures with guns and how they have been portrayed in the media. Not to say that some of them are not that, but it’s a stereotype.”

Before long, Mthembu reached viral superstardom, even in spaces he was not comfortable with, such as Twitter. “I’m not really active on Twitter,” he says with a half laugh. Brands such as John Craig, Brentwood, G-Star RAW, Kiehl’s, Spotify, L’Oréal, and Shaka iLembe came calling for collaborations with his alter ego, Eezy Nkabi. Suddenly, Mzansi couldn’t get enough of Mthembu and his sex appeal.  

When the conversation shifts to this sex-symbol status, he freezes as through he’s about to get up and run. But there’s nowhere to run to — we are lounging outdoors on a bench under a jacaranda tree. And there aren’t enough dry leaves and twigs on the ground for him to crawl away and hide.  

“Well… no,” Mthembu responds to being called a sex symbol and then hoots with laughter. He proceeds to give a politically correct answer — nothing but a salad of words. I cut him off mid-sentence and call bullsh*t on it, telling him the story of how my friends and I discovered the Asgqoke series and took turns thirsting over him in a WhatsApp group. It seems to work — he’s more relaxed now, and his shoulders drop.  

“People are in my DMs and it scares me. I’m like, ‘What do you want?’ I do respond with a professional ‘thank you’,” he says.

But I’m not satisfied, so I up the ante by asking if he’s single. He takes a long pause, you can hear the tree groan, then he burst out laughing once again. “I’m trying to think, because when this goes live it will land in someone’s inbox. Yes, I am seeing someone,” he replies, with a stutter. He has a hard time describing it. “We have our thing. She knows that I respect her, and she does the same. We are in a relationship,” he continues, finally finding his words.  

He has no trouble telling me about his current crush, Eva Apio, a London-based model and influencer. “I like petite and dark-skinned,” he says, taking me through Apio’s snaps on Instagram. “I’m into people who are not going to make it uncomfortable for me to be myself.”  

The youngest of six children, Mthembu was raised by a single mother. He played cricket in primary school and later basketball, because he didn’t know how to play soccer (he still doesn’t watch it). After high school he got his accounting degree at the University of Johannesburg. His first job in finance lasted two months.  

“Growing up I always wanted to be popular. For what? I don’t know,” is how he explains his short-lived finance career. Then he went into communication, joining marketing and brand agency DNA Brand Architects as a community manager before moving to copywriting – “Up until I realised it wasn’t my strongest point” – and then settling on a creative strategy.