Mourning Idols wail their way to Jaca Day

Dumisane Ngobene, a budding entrepreneur from Pretoria, is pulling in a pretty penny after starting up a rather unconventional business: Fake funeral criers for hire.

 

The 21-year-old placed an ad on Facebook offering to “fake-cry” or even “cry and roll on the ground” at funerals – for a fee. Some may see this service as disrespectful but Dumisane said that “Mourning, especially in African tradition, is an important part of funerals. So I decided to advertise to see if there was a market for it.” Little did he know that his advert would receive 8 000 shares and 3 000 likes within hours.

The prices are: normal crying at R200 per mourner, crying and rolling on the ground at R300 per mourner, crying and insulting at R400 a mourner, or crying and threatening to jump into the grave at R500 per mourner.”

 

TCB roped in Heinz Winckler, winner of the first series of South African Idols, to judge something they dubbed “Mourning Idols” to see which of their listeners would be ideal candidates to wail away should Ngobene recruit additional criers for his business.