Die Antwoord-$O$

Mini bio of the group with a little bit of Beat Boy


Before February 2, few in the United States had much knowledge of South African music, much less South African hip hop. But on that date boingboing.net and dlisted.com posted two videos from Cape Town based rap crew Die Antwoord. Millions visited Die Antwoord’s website causing it to crash in a few days though it quickly surfaced with much more bandwidth. In the last couple weeks Die Antwoord have become one of the biggest music acts on the internet thanks to videos for “Enter the Ninja” and “Zef Side” as well as hosting their debut album $O$ on their website.

The biggest attraction to them is their bizarre look and unique take on hip hop. Die Antwoord (Afrikaans for the answer) called themselves Zef rap. Zef roughly translates as common but should be thought of as the South African equivalent of the redneck. The group’s visual appearance echoes this; they seem to be something straight out of Harmony Korinne’s film Gummo.

The legitimacy of Die Antwoord’s Zef style seems pretty suspect. In the video for “Zef Side” the camera zooms in on frontman Ninja, wearing only some bling and a pair of Dark Side of the Moon boxers, and follows the rhythmic gyrations of his crotch in a way that can only be a joke. In real life, MC’s Ninja and Yo-Landi Vi$$ser are married with a daughter and the biggest tell is that the two along with third member DJ Hi-Tek were once members of MaxNormal.TV. Ninja was formerly Max Normal, real name Watkin Tudor Jones, who led a rap crew who performed in three piece suits. While the group may look like just a gimmick, the trio’s music is legitimately fantastic.


Enter the fucking Ninja

Debut album $O$ take hyper charged rave music and combines it with fast paced hip-hop. “Enter the Ninja,” one of the songs that helped Die Antwoord gain popularity, is typical of the group’s sound. Yo-Landi begins the song pleading “Be my samurai” then Ninja enters the song busting out slick rhymes faster than most rappers. The group’s lyrics switch between English and Afrikaans, sometimes in the same song, and when understood are witty and very profane. The song is like many hip-hop songs existing mostly to glorify the rapper’s exploits. Ninja’s lyrics are rather sarcastic mocking hip-hop conventions; during a spoken word section he exclaims “This is the coolest song I’ve ever heard in my whole life”. Die Antwoord are aware of hip-hop stereotypes and exploit them for their audience’s enjoyment.

Yo-Landi Vi$$er gets plenty of time on mic either keeping up with Ninja’s fast paced flow on the amped up “Wat Kyk Jy” or on solo track “Rich Bitch”. The pinnacle of the album is eight minute long “Beat Boy” which begins with Ninja commanding DJ Hi-Tek to “turn up that next level $hit”. The beat begins to build propelled by Ninja’s spitfire vocals and a sweetly smooth chorus courtesy of Yo-Landi. “Beat Boy” represents everything great about the album and Die Antwoord.

However, like most hip-hop albums, $O$ suffers from being overly long. For some reason hip-hop artists feel the need to fill out CDs to near capacity and at an hour long $O$ is just too much. With sixteen songs there’s a lot of filler and mediocrity, “Wie Maak die Jol Vol”, that threaten the success of the album. Fortunately, when Die Antwoord are at the top of their game it more than makes ups for the weaker songs and helps to keep the listening experience fun.

Though in need of an editor, Die Antwoord more than live up to the internet hype. This is one case where the internet has helped the world discover a hip-hop genius in Ninja who might have lingered in obscurity.

4/5


Just found this. My life is so much better.