DJ Black Coffee claps back at 'downgrade' jibes aimed at girlfriend Victoria Gonzalez

South African DJ and global music icon Black Coffee has called out the tired and frankly mean-spirited trend of comparing current partners to exes.

This comes after an X user shared photos of his Venezuelan model girlfriend, Victoria Gonzalez, alongside his ex-wife, actress Enhle Mbali, captioned with the now all-too-familiar prompt: “Upgrade or downgrade?”

The DJ responded with a sharp Xhosa insult followed by a meme aimed at rapper Reason (Sizwe Alakine), who has also been targeted by the same online circus.

He wrote, "mnqundu", which is a vulgar Xhosa insult that refers explicitly to someone’s private parts, particularly the buttocks or genitals, and is used offensively in anger or confrontation.

Rapper Gigi Lamayne has also been at the centre of similar discourse. After her relationship with Reason became public, she was labelled a "downgrade" compared to his media personality ex, Lootlove.

In response, Reason defended Lamayne, emphasising her professional achievements and questioning the basis of such judgements.

Black Coffee, whose divorce from Enhle Mbali was finalised in 2019, has been linked to  Gonzalez since 2023. The two have been travelling the world together, and Gonzalez even flew in to celebrate his birthday in March.

But in the eyes of some keyboard critics, happiness takes a backseat to appearance-based commentary. This “downgrade” discourse isn’t just petty but kind of cruel, gendered, and increasingly normalised.

Social media and podcasts, amongst others, have made it fashionable to analyse people’s love lives.

This incident highlights a broader trend where public figures' new relationships are subjected to online comparisons, often labelled as "upgrades" or "downgrades".

Such commentary reduces complex personal relationships to simplistic evaluations based on appearance or public persona. This isn't a 'who wore it best' moment; genuine feelings are involved.

Women in particular are thrown under the microscope, their bodies and looks dissected like they’re auditioning for a role they didn’t sign up for. It can be dehumanising and damaging.

The harm of this behaviour is often underestimated. For someone like Gonzalez, who may not be a household name in South Africa, becoming the subject of thousands of unsolicited opinions about whether she measures up to her partner’s past can be deeply unsettling.

It reduces their identity to aesthetics and sidelines the substance of the actual relationship.

Black Coffee’s choice to respond directly may have been blunt, but it also reflected the growing frustration with a trend that needs to be interrogated. 

The constant ranking of partners not only devalues them, but it reveals more about our own warped ideas of worth.