For far too long, Tol A$$ Mo, real name Mongezi Mahlangu, has been trending on social media for all the wrong reasons. Last year he started publicly speaking out and getting back into the spotlight after he was cleared of charges of sexual assault and rape. The attack on his name was relentless and will possibly not die down, anytime soon – but Mo was cleared by the courts and now has his eyes firmly set on the future. The comedian, gamer, entertainer and entrepreneur retired from the spotlight but is now once again taking centre stage.
He says: ‘I’m in a space where I am trying to find myself back on stage again. I am at a point where I have evolved. I’m not the same Mo that retired from the stage three and a half years ago. I am a different Mo. I have gone through the rites of passage for being a man, of being a sangoma and it has given me so much more wisdom and experience. It’s also backed up with knowledge that others would find esoteric.’
With enthusiasm, he says he is ready to put himself out there: ‘I’m on a level now where I am open to talk about more of my life experiences on stage. Right now it’s all about building up my one-man show – I’m going to be touring around the country and across Africa, and hopefully around the world in 2023. ‘I want to go out there and tell my story the way I know it best.’ Mo’s entire career and personal life has been documented by the cameras and he’s under no illusions about the journey ahead to reclaim his space in the entertainment scene.
‘I’ve only ever been myself on TV. I started dating on TV, I got engaged on TV, I got married on TV, my daughter was born on TV. I’ve been that open and honest character to South Africa all along, but now I feel like I’ve come out of my cocoon and become this butterfly that wants to soar the skies,’ he says.
Mo adds: ‘In South Africa, it’s not easy to make a comeback. It’s the hardest thing to ever do in this country. Once South Africans forget about you, they’ve forgotten about you because there’s always new flavours of bubblegum out in the market. We sometimes forget the substance of what true talent is.’
Family is important, and Mo and his wife, Mome Mahlangu, are busy building an empire when they’re not answering as mom and dad. ‘My wife has been an integral part of trying to get me back out there, slowly but surely,’ says Mo.
And they are partners in every sense of the word: ‘Mome and I are an amazing team, and we are able to separate work from our personal life and home. We’ve been doing this now for more than 13 years. We have found that common ground of knowing and understanding that we are
not celebrities to each other.
Being a guide for his son TK is probably one of the most important things for Mo right now. He says: ‘My role as a father has evolved because
my son is becoming a man. He’s got a beard now. We talk about shaving, we talk about relationships and we talk about his future. I’m discovering what his social commentary on life is. It’s sometimes easy for us parents to forget that the kids have a point of view.’ He adds that he can now even do things such as negotiating finances with TK who passed Matric two years ago and is a budding musician and rapper. ‘He’s at that stage where we can even talk about finances and I can tell him: “I can’t do that for you now but I can do it at a later time.”’
Mo says: ‘My role as a dad has really changed and evolved in such a way that I kind of have to let go. You raise them to hold them close to you, only to let them go later. It’s about opening up my hand slowly so he can go out there and yes, get burnt, get hit by the rain, get hit by the storms and always know that he’s got shelter at home and he’s got shelter with his dad.’
When he’s not blazing a trail on stage as a comedian, Mo is behind the scenes in his gaming business and describes himself as an entrepreneur. ‘If there’s a gap in the market, then you have to be the one to stand up and take it. I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs, business men and business women – never have I had that mentality of wanting to do something routine to earn a salary.’
With it comes risks and Mo says he’s not the kind of guy to stay in one job for years just because it’s a regular salary. ‘I’m used to living that life of financial risk and a lot of people find it difficult to jump over into the world of freelance because of the fear of not having that regular salary. A salary is like a drug and you can get so addicted to it that you lose all sense of ambition and sense of risk-taking because you become so comfortable with what you have,’ he adds.
No matter what the future holds for him though, Tol A$$ Mo has evolved, he’s grown-up and he’s taken life’s hard knocks but he’s not down
and out for the count just yet. ‘I was silenced for three years, so now I’m finally able to use my voice and speak again, and I am able to do what I love the most,’ says Mo.
With his family by his side, he is ready for the challenges that come with rebuilding his place in the spotlight and in the entertainment industry because Mo has got the passion and the drive to succeed now, like never before.
