Onezwa Mbola and Nara Smith: Is her imitation a sincere form of flattery?

by Staff Bona

A feud has erupted between netizens over local influencer Onezwa Mbola and US TikTok star Nara Smith.

The two seem to have more in common than just being SA-born.

Onewza, a Masterchef SA contestant, cooks food that she has raised, grown, or foraged herself, according to The Citizen.

She takes her followers on a journey when she prepares her dishes. Truly made from scratch, Onezwa, talks you through her dishes step by step, in a calm soft voice.

She has over 86K followers on Instagram.

Enter influencer Nara Smith who has had TikTok in a chokehold with her version of made from scratch. She has a distinctive style and has everyone on alert when she starts with: “This morning my children wanted, or my husband has been craving…”

Smith has been accused of copying Onezwa’s dishes, style, and even her voice-over sound.

 

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A post shared by Onezwa Mbola (@onezwambola)

@naraazizasmith couldn’t stop craving this🫶🏽 #homecooking #lasagne #comfortfood #fypシ #mealideas #recipes ♬ original sound – Nara Smith


@Makwande added: “Nara Smith before and after she discovered Onezwa Mbola. Happy Father’s Day.”

Claims are that Onezwa does a video and two or three days later Nara has a similar one up.

@houseofriya said: “In case y’all haven’t heard, Nara Smith has aggressively stalked Onezwa, a BW forger/farmer in South Africa, & stole her entire persona, recipes & more as her own. When Onezwa got frustrated & stopped creating content on TikTok to go to YouTube Nara stalked her there 2.”

Onezwa has addressed the situation head-on and said: “Nara Smith has been making kale salads with lemon juice and olive oil before she started stealing content ideas from small content creators.

“Now, I know she’s not slow and she intentionally misconstrued what I said with the comment that I was not the first to make boba. She knew you all would run with it. And gallop you did to come and tell me I’m not the first to do anything.

“After I said that 7 million times in that same video. I understand that some of you may be victims of Angie’s (Motshekga’s) education system and some of you were the children who were left behind so listening to understand may be a challenge. “

@onezwambolaI don’t participate in likeability politics 💚♬ original sound – Onezwa Mbola

Social media detectives went deep into the archives. They discovered that Nara’s content was completely different from a year ago and that she only recently changed it to include food and adding her family to videos.

@onezwambola • Guava Boba : guava leaf tea, guava infused goats milk • goats cheese, mushroom and spinach galette 💚🤌🏾 #fyp #rurallife #farmlife #ezilalini #southafrica #dayinmylife #viral ♬ original sound – Onezwa Mbola

@naraazizasmith what’s your drink order? #easyrecipes #homecooking #fypツ #drink #boba #cravings ♬ Just Give Me One More Day – Alej

A big bugbear for netizens is that since Nara is an American, she could be making serious money from these videos and Onezwa is not.

@mamoxn said: “It doesn’t sit well with me that TikTok doesn’t pay African content creators.

“It’s discrimination of the highest order & that they’ve gotten away with it for so long is unacceptable.

“The Nara Smith vs Onezwa debacle wouldn’t be an issue if TikTok was paying Africans for content!”


Nara has 7.7 million followers and has amassed more than 300 million likes.

TikTok has a creator fund that pays influencers if they have a huge following, gain enough qualified views, and hail from certain countries.

South Africans can’t score from the fund yet as it is not part of the approved list of countries.

According to Backstage.com, creators can only apply for funding if they are legal residents of the US, UK, Germany, Italy, France, or Spain.

Another issue is her not crediting those who she imitates. The adage: “Give credit where credit’s due” comes to mind.

Will Nara Smith do the right thing, and acknowledge our celebrated Onezwa? Let’s wait and see.

Words: Fame Frenzy