Friday night was Die Antwoord’s first gig since they exploded on computer screens around the planet. In the matter of a few days they went from being Waddy Jones and Yolandi Visser’s weird, barely understood Cape gangster hip hop project to a global pop phenomenon. There’s no arguing with over a million hits on Youtube. Die Antwoord’s cheesy rave beats, rof ska rhymes and zef so fresh has catapulted them to international fame, if not yet fortune. But it’s surely coming. And in retrospect it’s easy to see why. DJ Hi-Tek’s “next level beats” that Ninja frequently praises are really nothing more than a post-ironic take on techno rave sounds. They seem to reference early 90s dance cheese like C+C Music Factory and Technotronic. It’s the same kind of electronic pop schlock that gets parties started from Warsaw to San Francisco - but the approach is, perhaps, a little bit sardonic.
Add to that Yolandi’s school girl sexuality, bowl cut fringe and trashy Afrikaans accented gutter mouth and you’ve got the ultimate hook. Doef doef and hot sex. Then chuck in Ninja. The danger man. Occupying the damaged persona of a bullied kid who grew up tough in the ghetto and came out on top. Riding his talent like a snake on those zef beats. “All up in here on the interwebs”. It’s an intoxicating mix. Say what you like about Waddy Jones but the man has presence. When he takes to the stage he’s like an eye magnet. A fierce, brooding presence all prison chops and wild eyes. He varies between being overly self-consciousness and then flips it with instinct. He’s a natural on the mic. It’s not a question of whether he believes in the persona. He is Ninja. Just like he says:
“Ninja is poes cool
But don’t fuck with my game, boy
or I’ll poes you”
and later:
“This is not a game, boy
Don’t play with me”
It’s all there in that song, “Enter the Ninja” the anthemic track that pushes the whole crowd over the edge. Online and this Friday night in Durbanville. It’s a track that has people going mental from Chiba, Japan to Buenos Aires, Argentina and the white boys in the front row are screaming every lyric straight back at the man as he delivers it. Those dudes are living proof of the viral seduction, they’ve literally sat with that song on repeat, playing it over and over until they know every one of those rapid fire rhymes by heart. It’s a moment that crystalises things. Maybe it’s just me but certain songs, at certain times, have a way of overwhelming, sweeping you along in their revolution. It chokes me up, like I want to cry and roar at the same time. That’s how “Enter the Ninja” kicks me in the diaphragm. I know it won’t last, but right now, this is the shit on everyone’s high rotation.
And it’s almost like he’s addressing all the petty South African media hipsters who’ve made it a sport to diss Waddy’s projects.
“Fuck, this is like the coolest song I ever heard in my whole life
Fuck all of you who said I wouldn’t make it
Who said I was a loser
Said I was a no-one
Said I was a fuckin’ psycho
But look at me now
All up on the interweb
World-wide, 2009. futuristig”
That last line is almost prescient in it’s accuracy. And regardless what you think of the music, you got to give them kudos for their creation blowing up like this. Ad agencies spend millions of dollars each year trying to achieve the same kind of viral response as Die Antwoord, and fail. But even with all that recognition and the terrabytes of data flowing through the undersea cables that connect our electronic economy, Friday night was a weird affair. A lesson that massive internet traffic does not directly translate into punters through the door and cash in the till. A lot of the city’s internet scenesters and middle age creative types made the trip North to see what the fuss was about. Hedging their bets before the rest of the country and the world pop this bubble of cool. The venue could only really hold about 300 people, and on the night only 250 arrived. So while many mingled around the crush for the bar, the margins could not have been that great. The lesson is that in South African music, even instant internet celebrities must satisfy themselves with just a few hundred dollars per gig. When you overhear the owner claiming he had to pay Die Antwoord double what he pays most bands, you get a real understanding that music is a poor career choice in this country.
But really it wasn’t about all the middle age hipsters, the guy tweeting on his iphone, the other dude emailing his story from the bonnet of the car parked out front, or the cool guy with the Canon 5D filming from the hip while bopping his head in the front row. This gig was about those young shirtless dudes in the front row trying to impress Ninja by spitting his lyrics back at him, like religious zealots. It was about the cute, drunk Afrikaans girls who got so loose they started throwing bottles at each other in the mosh pit, and almost causing a fight, while stumbling into cigarettes and spilling people’s drinks. It was about the whole crowd coming together to catch Ninja as he launched himself headlong into a stage dive, and like some rof gam deity, they held him aloft and set him back down so he could continue the show.
All images © Andy Davis / Mahala
Give it a break Andy, find something else to write about for a while.
did you even read the piece?
Yes, I read the piece and that doesn’t change the fact that the subject matter has received over-saturated coverage on mahala in the last few days. So they played another gig - big deal.
tend to agree… played out…
yes. shut the fuck up and read mofo.
if you did you would have seen the recent commentary on mahala about the south african predisposition towards hateration.
haterrrr!
Easy now. I understand we’ve been giving DIe Antwoord a lot of coverage of late. But it’s the hottest story in South African music right now. I was at the gig, took some nice pics and had a couple of things to add.
Luckily it’s their last gig in a while and we can go back to scratching and sniffing the underbelly of south african culture
so tired of hearing about them now
“big in japan, I seen the future, but right now I got nothing in my hand except a microphone, big dreams and a plan”. from “enter the ninja”. i like this piece, i think it proves francois’ point from a few articles back that whether the market accepts them or not, new bands are going to have to push hard to get anywhere. as it should be. if die antwoord are still kicking people in the diaphragm in a few years, they’ll be worth all this attention.
methinks me hates the fact that I don’t see things me’s way and that makes (me) a… you got it… hater
I’m not tired of hearing about them and neither is the rest of the world. And especially not when the writing is good and gives me an insider view on a weird, gritty world full of people just like me (and not), and music and musicians that make me cringe as an Afrikaner and cheer (surreptiously) because they’re the ultimate antidote to Kurt Darren (thank you God). Write on, Andy.
Charly, comments like yours, are greatly appreciated.
Gee, time for bed and horlicks, grandma, nighty night.They’re the talk of London at the moment but no-one knows fucking anything about them so yeah, you might be saturated, love, but we’re not so kindly shut up. Nice article. I shall bookmark.
search the rest of the site, we’ve done a few
mofo -i apologise for my reaction earlier and fully agree that you are entitled to your opinion.
However, the reality is Die Antwoord represent, both in their art and success, a watershed moment for SA culture. I think the least they deserve is a little space. (which is what they’re getting btw.)
Thanks, Andy. Looking through it now. Everyone is obsessed with how they look and especially her and from what I can make out no-one seems to give a shit they can’t understand half the lyrics which is by turns amusing, but also pretty interesting. So refrershing and unusual. I really hope they can make it over for some of the European summer festival circuit at the very, very least.
I know that since the internet explosion they’ve been booked to play gigs all over the place. UK, US, Canada, Sweden, Russia, France, Belgium, Holland etc. And that tour kicks off in March/April
ay, and he didn’t even use base to cover up his knysna forest pixie tattoo on his left shoulder. what gives? thinking about moving back to fraggle rock?
Thanks, Andy, a well-written article that did indeed offer some new insights. Even made me consider crossing over to Durbanville for a good gig - your description of the crowd sparks my curiosity far more than another night surrounded by boring stupid hipsters at the Assembly.
One thing: I always assumed Die Antwoord was a parody of Cape gang (read: “coloured”) culture, and deemed it socially and racially insensitive and generally offensive. In the past Waddy’s song about “Xa! the Khoi girl” (with MaxNormal.tv) made me feel similarly sceptical, especially when performed to a mainly White audience that just found it funny. Any thoughts?
Great piece, spoiled only by one little factual inaccuracy: the awesomely froody dude who was “emailing his story from the bonnet of the car parked out front” is not middle-aged. I can say with some authority that he is an eternal 22.
Shit, my bad… just trying to drag you down with me
Ruth we working on that story…
just a thought andy, how about putting together a glossary of terms for international punters? there are a couple of things that could do:
a) they could understand what ninja was on about, and
2) they could understand what ninja was on about…
Good read, Andy, and nice comp on the snaps!
Some peeps in SA might be sick of DA and the ever more in-depth coverage they’re garnering, but there are a metric fuckton of us in the rest of the world that appreciate it plenty. Keep on keepin’ on, brother.
nice write up andy plus a nice comment on the music scene got it in one
nice one Andy. Your best piece in a while. What’s up with the nibblers? Let the man do his job.
Love or hate Die Antwoord, nobody - ’specially not you sad haters- knows how big this thing will blow up. We’re wondering… will he pull the plug on this one? Will his accent improve? Did he really tattoo that kak on his neck? But none of it matters, because they just jumped the wall.
PS I used to think Annika/Yolandi was the Yo-ko in the pack, but now I’m eating hat.
hey, ups from USA & SF - maybe y’all are tired of these genius clowns but we are just getting started, it’s nuts - an explosion. anybody around me who has checked them out has been befuddled and delighted and disturbed and eventually appreciates the pure creative juice being spewed in every fookin’ direction by die antwoord. it’s fully on.
all your bored readers, go read a book or something until the wave passes and quit whining!
the fucking answer to everything
how about being able to KIK KAK The comments? Some are soooo KAK!
I wouldn’t mind reading more about their music and their lyrics. When I first heard DA I immediately thought of Triompf which is also hilariously, disturbingly, gleefully, sympathetically fuck-you to your face. And “Beat Boy” practically channels Lambert..no?
I remember being chewed out and canned by my headmaster in Std. 4 for writing “cunt” in a poem at school. I swear I didn’t know what it meant. I just fucking needed that word. And so when I hear DA today I just have to laugh.. their poes is the poes. That’s all I got to say. I hope they’re wildly successful.
Ja, had enough, if I have to see the words “interweb” and “zef” again, I will demote Mahala from home page status. You’re even getting New Yorkers to write about it - exercise some editorial lancing here!
Ha its awesome that they have 1 000 000 youtube views….just funny that all the comments under the video says how shit it is
Great article. I’m in the US, spreek een beetje Nederlands (but not Afrikaans!), and had a few professors from South Africa in college but otherwise this culture is new to me. Lines like “Jacob Zuma taught me how to talk shit” — awesome! Apologies to those in South Africa who are sick of them already. I hope if they get big here in the US they don’t go over like Chumbawumba — one smash hit that becomes a novelty, their actual message totally lost.
Dudes , i have know Mr jones for a number of years , and he is one of the ony artists with the balls to not give a fuck and still be relatively succesfull.
He is one of the only artsist to push the Borders ( Literally & Figuartively) , and come up with new shit , think about back in the day when” please be a little bit considerate” was the CPT anthem .
yes the music has changed , yes the scene has changed , yes hip-hop has changed , and so has he , he is not the everyday 4×4 ‘94 ol skool MC , he is creating another culture , unique to us !!!! Embarce the kuk taste…………….
I personaly dont dig the new shit so mumch , but respect is due .
The man is multi-talented , he makes hand -made dolls for fuks sakes …………….
the haters are always gonna have something to say .
If you dont dig it , dont go , but the end of the day , whether you dig it or not , and you are still taking the time to post on the blog he (Waddy/ninja) has achieved his goal of controversy and getting us fukker to taklk about him…………………………..
*getting us fukkers to talk about him
ja, like that guy said
Those “cute drunk afrikaans girls” Totally ruined that gig for me. Unnecessary childish aggression. If you cant stand without falling - dont fuck it up for everyone who can.
I want to know what The Question was in the first place.
whats up, checking back in from NYC again. thanks for the live show write-up… it’s a weird thing to go from local to worldwide overnight, and to deal with the resulting pressures, one of the may things that keeps this interesting.
Ninja is a poes takes himself lank seriously he can fok off
waddi is one of the most talented performance artist in the country at the moment. the fact is. he has been for a while. he is art. he has a message and is prepared to get up on stage and tell it. to all the couch potatoes out there. get up. do something instead of dissing something that is making the borders of this country bigger and wider
altius et latius - higher and wider
Yolandi you make witkak kool…….
“Beat Boy” channels Bronski Beat from the ’80s, nothing more mysterious or multi-dimensional than that, sorry to say.
die dilemma
That is not ALL it “channels”. Obviously its only one dimension of the whole package. So you’re accusing one dimension of not being multi dimensional. Smart.
he doesnt take himself seriously Poes
dont you get it? Its entertainment.
@MJG:
I imagine The Question was: ‘What the fuck can he do to top Max Normal?’
If the basis of Die Antwoord is to create a reaction, it’s working. Waddy/Ninja has always had a canny knack at hitting the audience in the solar plexus, a skill honed over the years to the extent that anyone who’d been following the show since Original Evergreen could safely predict that a lull in his output can only mean he’d be gathering strength for the next assault.
In a time when we’re fucking swamped with banal, mundane dreck which washes over us in waves to the point that we’re utterly desensitised to the visceral nature of music, nobody can deny that Die Antwoord are achieving their aims: to kick shit, be heard and klap an otherwise comatose audience awake. All the hating, liking, discussion or emulation is peripheral reinforcement which fuels the machine. Canny motherfucker, that Waddy Ninja Jones.
Job well done. On with the show.
No time to read it all right now, but got a msg on FB last night that Fred Durst tweeted about Die Antwoord, his favourite band of the moment. So all you haters shut up for a while and look at the bigger picture. My 5c worth - Waddy Jones is a fucking musical genius. The man goes from strength to strength and is always innovating - this is nothing new for him, just the extent of his reach has grown. Go Ninja go!
Question: why, if this is the hottest thing in South African music right now, has the entire local press (both commercial, underground, whatever) pretty much ignored the real biggest musical thing to come out of South Africa in the last few years: DJ Mujava? Searched…he’s not on here. Neither is Culoe de Song, someone who’s making way more international waves than Die Antwoord.
What’s that smell? It must be the chic whiff of cultural bias.
Bottom line is, they are making waves overseas where other SA bands are falling short. Whether it is hype, or over-hype, who cares, they are making an impact and are retaining some strand of Saffa’ism at the same time. I live in London and trust me, no other SA bands are filtering through. There are some great SA bands out there but their sound is a dime a dozen when it comes to the international market and good on these guys for making an impact, no matter how it was achieved.
I’m a DJ, I have no musical talent and make my living from other people’s music
Why is it that white trash equated black by the ivory towerd media and other white fokls? WTF!
@DJ Mujava: you are not a DJ. You are a producer who made a track that WARP thought was the best thing ever produced. They signed it and you actually got played by huge DJs all over the world. You have been remixed by everyone from Diplo to Ashley Beedle to Mark Pritchard to Matias Aguayo to Ikonika. You are touring Europe and appearing on the cover of French music mags. You made it onto WARP’s 20-year box set. Get your facts right DJ Mujava.
Great write up, but jussie moer there are some jaded whingers that read and comment of these things!
@Question. Where’s my whistle? and who the fuck are Diplo Ashley Beedle Mark Pritchard Matias Aguayo Ikonika?
WARP is KAK, Europe i gay
Nice one Andy!!
Loved the article and love this success story - even if it’s only for a short while. Always nice to see something like this pop up in your own backyard and get this kind of international exposure!!
South Africa’s got talent - no doubt! Listened to this awesome set on 5FM driving home last night ‘Ultimix at 6 with DJ Elemental’ .. it’s Trance, but you it’s awesome!! Download the tune and listen to the second half for a real treat in local talent .. http://www.elementaldj.co.za
Rock on Die Antwoord!!
Never mind Mujava, they’re minor gay wannabes who’ll never be as big as Die Antwoord.
Childish stuff ….. let’s try to introduce some subtlety. I don’t see any
in the lyrics. Too many f***s etc …
How about that famous graffiti “The youth are revolting …. ”
Prefer Mozart / Verdi operas etc … to these gigs. Much more subtle,
but then, of course, this is all difficult to understand …..
Clearly, there is very little hope …..
Am I the only one who finds the video deeply disturbing? I don’t know if people recognize the irony - media reading requires some skill. And the lack of taste of the general SA population is another issue altogether. As for the kids standing in the front row reciting the rhymes.. well… it makes me wonder.. Does Waddy take himself seriously? O is this comedy? A ploy for us to laugh at what hip hop has become? I really don’t know.
you said it Fin…
Ifd - Oh God… not Fred Durst - kiss of death. Katy Perry is also tweeting bout them. Second kiss of death, ack!
Question - not cultural bias, yawn, I challenge you to try find any good, in-depth relevant information about DJ Mujava in SA media. Wikipedia doesn’t count. He’s big, but he certainly doesn’t play the game as well as Die Antwoord - and definitely has not exploded in nearly the same kind of insane hype and “cultural phenomenon” as Die Antwoord. He’s a house DJ/Producer. Dancefloors love him - but that’s about it.
Saw a link to them on Juxtapoz:
http://www.juxtapoz.com/17493-die-antwoord-and-baltimore
And on maddecent:
http://maddecent.com/blog/2010/02/02/wat-pump/#comments
Great piece. thanks
Read the NME’s take on D.A…. makes for amusing reading. (and they think it’s all a prank. Try me for irony!?)
http://www.nme.com/blog/index.php?blog=15&title=die_antwoord_and_zef_sooth_ifricah_s_mos&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1
@oracle Ag come now, the Oracle. I loves my Monteverdi too, I haz the Tallis Scholars, Pärt can float my boat.. but now I’m supposed to be too.. what, square? hip? for DA? Because there isn’t enough subtlety in it? Because.. I can’t read media? Because they’re not.. Mozart? (seriously??).
Square or hip I don’t much care, but I think people who write them off re-hashed, low-class nihilist junk are selling them a little too short. Listen to some of the other tracks. There’s plenty of clever, sardonic humor (and heart) in their lyrics. And fresh poes sprinkled about like punctuation. What more can you want?
yoko solo sez it white! yooo!
Rad article. the kiefest one on the intewebs thus far.
Fuck. Such instant gratification babies huh. Good thing we weren’t the contemporaries during the epoch when jimi Hendrix or the beatles or led zeppelin or fuck, the rolling stones began to bloom. We’re so used to the internet’s fast changing attitude we don’t even notice that two weeks of resurfacing information on the same topic means nothing to history. That we should encourage it more. Encourage things of caliber to last.
@ Question.
Where-ever there is a symbiotic relationship between the media and culture, the culture is successful. Due to haters such as we have experienced in this comments board, that relationship has been shat on in our history and is only now starting to develop. It may take a while.
Do you really need the question when you have the answer?
Kiff article, kiff music. Mates in Berlin are asking me if I know Die Antwoord, having picked up on it from the web. If it’s not already on the dancefloors here, it soon will be.
the thing is, that whatever you say about die antwoord (either its bad or good - its both. anyways) - it manages to be unique and interesting. and really not a copy of crap jay-z rap…
and it manages to make people google “south african music”
i live in poland (central europe). and to this day only music from SA that had its time on my playlist was dj mujava (i didnt have a clue where he’s from, tho) but now, because of the crazy ninja i wasted 6 to 9 hours on last.fm and youtube looking for stuff from your scene.
most of it is whiny rock pop crap.
of course, you can tell me that die antwoord is in no way relevant to the full spectrum of SA music, and that - has to be true, as most of the our polish scene is whiny rock pop crap. or crap pop crap crap.
but if someone stands out so far that he manages to make people around the world interested in the whole scene of our country - respect him.
pardon my kak english.
ah, and dont finish like grunge seattle in the 90’s, please
not to insult your scene tho, most things *ive found* are whiny. pardon my google also.
can we all grow up a bit please …….
Thanks for the story. There seems to be very little new info about Die Antwoord.
There’s abundance of rehashing what little can be found about them.
I can’t wait till the U.S. tour.
Many people complain about the over saturation of DA, but this I believe comes from people that are heavily in the internet culture. Walk down the street and ask around to see if anyone has heard of them. I bet you’ll find very few do.
The internet has only proven that the concept works.
I still prefer the old style of MaxNormal, this is new and fresh but just doesnt really do it! Waddy with sibot and all the others was f****** so much better! But thats just my opinion! I look foward to seeing DieAntwoord at SPLASHY FEN 2010!
Agree with anonymous above about MaxNormal , cant wait to see DieAntwoord at the alexander theater on the 26th feb in jozi.
saul williams just tweeted Die anwoord
This ou is probably from Uitenhage. Once again Mahala vacillates in an attempt to sound impartial - that’s Andy Poes Davis.
The truth and the only truth is this is the first real music you have reviewed. Ninja is SA’s Johnny Rotten and the cool bits of Eminem. Ma se poes in a fishpaste bottle trumps ZX Dan and God save the queen. So silly, silly, silly journos you are not in his league. Never will be, never, never, never. Mahala journalists just don’t have it. Or the apparatus to understand it. Verstaan/verstehen.
As a white 20 something South African living overseas, a couple of years on I still am a big fan of the Max Normal project, I don’t think there will be a time that I won’t be.
I still quote (in my head) “please be a little bit considerate” when an opportunity comes my way and still remember the Carfax days fondly.
In keeping in touch with my home, I stumbled upon Die Antwoord and yes is a little left of center and I didn’t take to it immediately. A couple of weeks in, it’s still a little weird, but that doesn’t make it crap, it makes it boundary shifting.
To me, it represents an embracing of change and mixing the old with the new. I like that he’s got SA to sit up and pay attention to something, a feeling, I guess that is so controversial.
Oh and on a side note, DA have exploded on this side of the world (Australia). Time to get myself home for a gig…
As a white 20 something South African living overseas, a couple of years on I still am a big fan of the Max Normal project, I don’t think there will be a time that I won’t be.
I still quote (in my head) “please be a little bit considerate” when an opportunity comes my way and still remember the Carfax days fondly.
In keeping in touch with my home, I stumbled upon Die Antwoord and yes is a little left of center and I didn’t take to it immediately. A couple of weeks in, it’s still a little weird, but that doesn’t make it crap, it makes it boundary shifting.
To me, it represents an embracing of change and mixing the old with the new. I like that he’s got SA to sit up and pay attention to something, a feeling, I guess that is so controversial.
Oh and on a side note, DA have exploded on this side of the world (Australia). Time to get myself home for a gig…
yaw u okes still talking about this ………….lol
Die Antwoord have put South Africa on the map more than the under selling world cup!
They will be the biggest thing over seas this summer while you all are still inconsequential. lady gaga took a long time to figure out the formula that worked for her… the worse he might have been makes what he’s doing now even better. HATERS
Yeah whatever to you bored people go eat some ice cream and watch paint dry. These guys kick ass, if you can’t see how thier balls to the walls creativeness has just thrown SA culture back into cool school than you can’t see further than your toenails. Nice blog, I only found out about these guys yesterday and being an old school hip hop head from London and Lusaka they have the Shaolin seal of approval for innovation, communication and education.
Plus that girl is bloody nuts and sexy with it. That has not been done like that ever. Don’t hate, try to match and innovate! Big up Die Antwoord and all those who they represent (Previously with no voice). These guys are showing the world that SA has not just been left a violent, racist place with some amazing landscape but breeds creativity even in the face of adversity. WAR!!!!!
we have an antidote for the indie hipster disease plaguing the scene, perfect timing.
Nice article, Die Antwoord fucken rocks, all you haters are retards.
These guys are cool no doubt; a good way to pass the time before Eminem properly comes back. Relapse 1 was more a drug recovery album than anything else.