Note: you’re going to have to login to Yotubes to watch this video.
Die Antwoord are back with their unending celebration of weirdness and the depravity of the human condition. Videos like this make me happy that Die Antwoord decided to split with Interscope and retain creative control of their work. It is so good. Totally worth signing in to watch.
And, if you’re a total vinyl geek like me, check out their current record at Insound. Ten$ion.
Die Antwoord are back continuing their celebration of ugliness. Much has been written here on The Black Laser about the group, so I won’t waste your time. If you want to read what I’ve written, just click the “Die Antwoord” tag at the bottom of the post. But do watch the video and start to get excited for their next record. I am.
Hell yes! Die Antwoord is back with a fresh single from their forthcoming record TEN$ION to be released on their new indie label Zef Records after a messy, public split from Interscope. You can’t blame them for leaving Interscope either since the label tried to water down Die Antwoord’s sound and image, to make them more pop-friendly. And that’s just plain wrong. Good on Die Antwoord for sticking to their guns and taking the artistic—if not commercial—high road.
The title of this track translates loosely to “Fuck you fuckers,” which is a perfect title. I was going to say the this video had a paucity of penises compared to their other ones, and then I got the end of the third minute and DJ Hitek came in with his “I’ll fuck you in the ass” section and all my worries about a lack of penises dissipated.
Sometimes the internet is a marvelous thing. What we were discovering just weeks ago has since completely blown up and spread virally. I’m, of course, talking about Die Antwoord, South Africa’s finest art. And even the stodgiest of the old guard, The New Yorker, has hit on their magnificence. Check it.
If authenticity is a vampire threatening to suck the fun out of pop music, the South African band Die Antwoord (“The Answer,” in Afrikaans) is a fistful of garlic. Go to the band’s well-designed Web site and you will find a goofy, vibrant ball of confusion. Die Antwoord was founded by a South African music-biz veteran named Waddy Jones (Ninja, here) who celebrates zef, which translates roughly as “common” or “redneck,” but which Jones claims is a synonym for “the ultimate style.” This dicey language game will be refereed by South Africans; everyone else can unravel the band’s musical preference for the nineties. (Vanilla Ice and Technotronic come to mind.) The band is better at generating questions than answers. What’s with the post-Keith Haring illustrations? Why does the band member Yo-landi Vi$$er look like both a model and a normal teen-ager? Is Die Antwoord a celebration or a sendup? Get ready for a fight about the legitimacy of the group and, hopefully, for an influx of more South African pop culture.
What’s next? The Wall Street journal reviewing The Behemoth’s next record? A four page article on Detroit Ghettotech in the Conservative Chronicle? An editorial in The Economist on the best places in Brooklyn to drink on a Saturday afternoon? Will the wonders never cease?!
Check the original here.
Thanks for the heads-up, Sarah!
I’ve been rustling through the interwebs today and found out a little more about Die Antwoord. Apparently, the group is the brain child of Watkin Tudor Jones, aka NINJA. His career in South African hip-hop stretches back to the halcyon days of the mid-90s (remember those?) and across several different projects, such as Max Normal and the Constructus Corporation.
Now, I could go and rehash all the info I read, but instead I’ll just send you to the site where I read it.
How about some samples of their previous work?
Max Normal.tv
Constructus Corporation
I’ve also learned about this concept called “zef” which is a South African word meaning something like “common.” Based on the description I got from Kameraad Mhambi’s blog post “What is Zef?” is that it’s like a blend of ghetto and trailer park sensibilities. Read the article though, it’s more informative than what I just wrote.
Where does that leave us with Die Antwoord? Exactly where we were before. They are still awesome. If these guys ever came to New York, I’d be in line an hour before doors. Seriously, I don’t care if there’s a whole scene in South Africa, this shit is fresh as fuck here in the States and I am into it. I need—NEED—the record. Need it so bad.
Yesterday, before posting Die Antwoord’s music videos, I sent them to my friend Gardner, absolutely sure that he would enjoy them. I was, of course, right. He loved the hell out of them right away. And, being Gardner, what does he do? He finds the band’s e-mail and send them an e-mail about how awesome they are.
To: Die Antwoord
From: Gardner Loulan
Subject: You are now my gods.I just came across your stuff via my friends blog TheBlackLaser.net and I am totally obsessed now. I was a VJ for MTV Networks in the US a few years ago and have a knack for getting excited about the next level of music and you are it. It’s like you’re bitch slapping Lady Gaga while melting The Knife in her propelled by The Sounds and blowing up Golgol Bordello with an M.I.A. bomb—- putting them all int he past and back together again in the future where you clearly reside.
Well done,
-Gardner Loulan
Now, one usually expects this sort of missive to go unnoticed or unreplied to. But did it? Of course not!
From: Die Antwoord
To: Gardner Loulanwhat a FUCKIN nice thing to say
we fuckin love you for saying thisonce my blaar!
NINJA
out
This trifecta of e-mails was completed with a brief note from Gardner to me.
To: Me
From: Gardner LoulanMy day is now complete.
Awesome. Thank you, internet, for allowing us to have such remarkable instantaneous contact with such diverse people from all around the world. Though we often take it for granted, the ease with which we can communicate with folks from such places as far from us as South Africa is truly incredible.
And also thanks, Die Antwoord, for being cool enough to respond to Gardner.
And thanks, Gardner, for being enthusiastic enough about everything to go out of your way, if only a little bit, to track these dudes down.
If you haven’t yet watched the music videos below, do. And get yourself to Die Antwoord’s website and listen to their, frankly, amazing debut streaming in its entirety. Go now!
