Both here and on their website, the impression is one of a trio of friends deeply loyal to family roots, with a tight connection to place. On the “undaunted by cool” tip, here’s “Zef-Side,” shot in their neighborhood. What this video says: These guys absolutely know what they’re doing: You’re struck, meanwhile, by the smart production and Haring-psych background art. He seems earnest-see below-but his bravado, mixed with the madman Lyle Lovett thing, is just hilarious. (Still in his 20s, Botha is supposedly the oldest living person with progeria, the disease that makes people age ultra-rapidly.) Here Yo-Landi plays sexy schoolgirl Ninja the bad boy rapper who nobody believed in. Take their signature bit, “Enter the Ninja,” made all the more surreal by a cameo from the talented South African visual artist Leon Botha. The whole album is based on the sound it’s gonna make when it’s pumping through a taxi-It’s that high energy shit you can’t compare. You can hear it from the next city when the taxi comes through, you hear DOOM DOOM DOOM-they gooi the rap-rave megamixes pumping like a nightclub. Here in South Africa the taxis play rave music fokken loud my bru. Here’s Ninja talking to Vice magazine about the group’s first album, $0$, coming out soon in the States. (Afrikaans, after all, is said to be the best language for swearing.) Catchy. Yo-Landi and Ninja are vocally skilled and profane. DJ Hi-Tek: inscrutable, but the beats are right. Lead man (Watkin Tudor Jones, aka Ninja) is practically a caricature and yet somehow original angry, inked, completely bonkers-and undaunted by anyone else’s idea of cool. Leading lady (“Rich Bitch” Yo-Landi Vi$$er) is ultra-twee, a severe, unconventional beauty. They’re a trio of white-trash Afrikaners from southern South Africa, pumping a homegrown rave-hip-hop sound they alternatively call zef-rap or simply “next-level shit.” I don’t know what to make of this crew, exactly, but I’m definitely intrigued. Update: On the brink of their US tour and debut CD release, I interviewed Die Antwoord about their risque new video, South African culture, and why they well self-destruct after five albums: Part 1 here, and Part 2 there. Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |