Fans of Netflix’s Young, Famous & African reality TV show, gather! Season 3 (YFA S3) is out, and boy, it’s filled with toxic adrenaline! By and by the show is becoming a Christmas that we have to itch for each year. So if you haven’t streamed it yet, what the-rat’s-tail are you waiting for? Matter of fact, for the typical Gen Z, Netflix, despite its flaws especially the over-emphasis on gay sh*t situations, is a necessity, as are Spotify, and Instagram. TikTok is quite debatable.
So FYI to catch YFA S3, you’ll have to have watched previous seasons because they form the bedrock for the plot in Season 3. Buckle up, let’s go…
Young, Famous & African (Season 3) Cast
The darling Andile Incube is conspicuously absent, and Khanyi Mbau makes a few minutes’ appearance. Yuck, right? This should cut the whole excitement, especially for the ladies, for they worship the former’s gentlemanly trait and his James Bond smoothness. That is far from true though. It only gives playboy Diamond Platnumz the space to shine, and boy did he outdo himself! It is possible that Andile and Khanyi were left out to create space for new entrants Uganda’s Shakib Cham Lutaaya, Nigeria’s Ini Edo, SA’s Kefile Mabote, and Namibia’s Louis Munana (whose entry in YFA season 2 was showered with cold water by Swanky Jerry, Zari Hassan (the Boss Lady) and the temporary Bonang Matheba. These guys can be stone cold!) Also, it’s possible that Netflix was creating a void for fans to miss and crave the pair so that they bounce back in season 4.
Their absence affects the plots of Diamond and Nadia—the former shines brighter, the latter kind of webs and gets lost into Annie and Zari’s plots, her marriage that is. Without Khayi, her right-hand-woman, and with the death of her lover AKA, she is left stale and bitter. Don’t be surprised if she is a no-show come season 4.
Diamond, whose plot carried S1 and S2—I know this sounds disagreeable, without him shining so much in them, gets the spotlight flashed onto him in S3 by every factor. It’s Lucky Day for him. Zari’s marriage to Shakib, in the opening act, for instance, is a direct stimulus towards Diamond, because Zari, who has been a favourite loses that favourite spot—her loud-mouth-ruffling X-factor, by playing safe because her husband is always tagging around—and this gives Diamond the mantle. Also, this marriage has a direct impact on Diamond, and here, his shine is determined by how he reacts to it—firstly he is absent from it, and a liar as he proves to be, lies about not being invited. Secondly, he tries throughout the show to manipulate the co-parenting situation with Zari to take a jibe at Shakib and shake him a lil’ bit to test and break confidence and trust in his dear wife. The ‘Why did you allow your mother to marry?’ question to his kids Tiffah and Nillan shows that he feels Zari should remain unmarried forever. Reason? Ear to the ground…
It goes without saying that Shakib, though the proud ‘owner’ of the beautiful and wealthy Zari, has a whole lot to deal with in the face of the Diamond-Zari co-parenting situation. The question of surrogacy between Zari and Diamond, which they arranged discretely in season 2, comes up as a big question in season 3 and shows that there are more skeletons between these two ex-lovers. Though Zari denies ever suggesting to Diamond the idea of surrogating a kid together, it is evident she is not telling the complete truth to her husband. Her body language—she is panicky all the way—and the non-clarity while explaining to him when put on the spot, tells it all.
She manipulates poor Shakib into trusting her word simply because ‘Diamond is a liar’ and ‘I am your wife. I am with you, not with him’. Point: it shouldn’t matter whether Diamond is a liar or whether Zari needs to be listened out or not by the fact of being his wife, if she is economical with the truth, she should not take the entitlement and privilege to swing the lie in her favour. But dear LORD, she does that with scary agility!
When Diamond repeatedly asserts that Zari wants her, this statement and the boldness with which it is made shows that Zari and Diamond have their Baby Mama-Baby Daddy dealings that are not going away any time soon. For instance, how did Diamond land a spot in the show, in the first place? I guess the same way Shakib has (boy made a post on IG thanking the Boss Lady for that). Shakib Cham should brace self.
Fantana’s relationship with Diamond also shines a light on him more. The closing act in season 2 had them reconcile the ‘you have a girlfriend’ saga when, convinced or not, she decided to play along with Diamond’s lies. In reality, Diamond is dating his label singer, Zuchu—a thing Nadia, Swanky and Zari rubbed into her ‘waxed’ ears too many times.
Fantana however chooses naivety for reasons we can just cast assumptions on—perhaps she is in deaf stupid love with the successful but deceptive musician, as many viewers want to think, or she is trying to tap into his shine—followers and success, in a way. The latter assumption becomes more likely when in the event she suspects she is carrying ‘mini-Platnumz’ and Nadia, Swanky, and Kefilwe are all over her, she stays indifferent, her explanation being: ‘if I’m pregnant my child will need a dad. So I’m just playing along not to push him away’. It’s quite likely she is playing along in everything after all. She might not be that foolish young girl everyone thinks she is—see her IG.
She might be using Diamond’s lies against him, slowly, surely and subtly—Alex does same thing to Randall in Tyler Perry’s If Loving Is Wrong. Fantana should’ve ditched Diamond in the event when she smoked him out making moves at her friend Kefi on a date. This moment, even Diamond conceded, ‘is the most **** up thing in the whole world’ but Fantana, smiling as usual, threw a few milder than necessary tantrums and, by the effect of the famous ‘A few Moments Later’, they were back on the streets of Kissing-lips-dry. Kefi must have caught a stroke low-key! Diamond promised to come back for her later. Something to see in Season 4.
Aside from Zari’s new but threatened marriage (even Annie does think Shakib is but a child to Zari…ouch!), Diamond’s adolescent-esque libido, Shakib’s evidently-timid-and-forced confrontation of Diamond—he looked and sounded like a young boy trying to confront his father—about his behavior with Zari, as well as his English accent, the rest of the show remains as fans should’ve predicted: Annie’s wars with everyone are on as usual (Zari reminds her that her darling husband, the famous 2Baba is getting girls younger than Shakib pregnant like he is paid for it…double ouch!); Louis’s plot has no fiber aside from engaging in Diamond-Shakib wars, trying to sire a child by surrogacy due to his lack of real family blah blah (which I think is a weak plot); actor Ini Edo seems to me an unnecessary addition (even with her mouth which, judging from her movies, we never realized was that far from silent); DJ Naked and Kayleigh Schwark are still struggling with commitment, and their roles are as they have always been—supporting other acts positively (DJ Naked admires and defends Diamond’s playboy flair and if he’d had no girlfriend enrolling under Diamond’s tutorship is something he’d consider).
The downside of Young, Famous & African season 3 comes with the Annie-Swanky phone-call/voice note feud! It was far from necessary, a waste of our internet bundle. This feud should have been dissolved in season 2 by Andile, so seeing it here gave me the yawns! I am supposing it was meant to give Annie relevance and emphasize her gas-lighting trait, make Swanky busier, and also give us more of the away-from-marriage side of Zari, but it failed.
Kefi could be a good replacement for Khanyi, given her South African adrenaline; and come season 4 Nadia should get as controversial as we think she is capable of being.
In the end, this show dented a few relationships here and there, including Zari’s fresh marriage; and Diamond, according to the Instagram situation in Tanzania, might have lost one girl who loves him like a puppy, Zuchu. But who knows, Netflix might be preparing the ground for her appearance in season 4.
Unpopular disclaimer: Shakib doesn’t cut it for me as a gentleman, as many Ugandan females are decorating him. He’s just lost on the queen’s language and lacks the adrenaline needed to keep up with the generator-like fast-talking motor-mouths in the show.
By Mwesigwa Joshua
