I make no secret of my love for the South African nutjob rap-rave duo. Their songs are catchy, their image is hilarious, their music videos are grotesque in the best possible way, and the rappers at the center, Ninja and Yolandi Vi$$er are fucking fascinating. Now, I understand what many must be thinking when they read the title of this op-ed. "The fuck dude, I thought you had good taste in music. They're crap. Also, they're music is dumb and they're homophobic. How could this band have any redeeming qualities?" Hear me out, I used to be of the same opinion, but they Die Antwoord is simply very good and hiding their brilliance.
To understand my claim, it's first important to understand the people at the center of Die Antwoord. Watkin Tudor Jones, aka Ninja, has been in the South African rap scene for over 20 years. His works has always been on the experimental side. Soon after dropping his first solo album, Watkin took the stage name Max Normal, pretending to be a purposefully uncool corporate rapper who wore a suit to every performance. This would be the first in a long line of personas that Watkin would adopted during his hip-hop career. After disbanding Max Normal for creative reasons, Watkin formed The Construcus Corporation which was a financial disaster despite being fucking amazing musically (yo, read my write up of them if you need an update on their awesomeness), made a few songs under his real name once more and then finally revived Max Normal as MaxNormal.TV. He put the suit back on and started rapping to national audiences again, except this time accompanied by a collaborator from the Constructus days named Anri du Tout (who now performs under the name Yonlandi Vi$$er). MaxNormal.TV's only album Good Morning South Africa is also amazing and might get its own write up some day, for now I'll give you the broadest breakdown I can get away with.
Total Fuck Up: Watkin (or maybe the character Max Normal, it's unclear which identity takes over and when) raps about his inadequacies and contemplates becoming a rave rapper. Maybe I should take E / And try to get into the new rave scene. This is likely a harbinger of his shift towards rave music once he formed Die Antwoord.
Rap Fantasy: Watkin's desire to be revered as a rapper and enjoy all the worldly pleasures associated with rap culture. Die Antwoord often reference the lyrics of this song in regards to how Ninja is finally living a lavish lifestyle.
Laf Nag: Max Normal ends up in the Cape flat ghettos, is robbed and is forced at gunpoint to smoke some drugs. Finally he goes to a party where he watches the men who robbed him rap to karaoke music. The Die Antwoord song Wie Maak Die Jol Vol mimics the style of this song.
The album passes unnoticed, months later Die Antwoord's Zef Side becomes an international viral hit, Die Antwoord sign to Interscope Records and the rest is history. Thus, given what we know, DA can be one of two things.
1. An Amazing Piece of Satire
The most obvious expression of Die Antwoord's style certainly comes in the form of their highly stylized music videos. The Die Antwoord music videos present a certain degree of self-parody. The over-the-top lewdness of Evil Boy and Zef Side certainly lend themselves to a sort of Ali G-esque parody. At it's core, it is once again the story of a privileged white guy who wears the trappings of a culture that does not belong to him, but if we assume that Die Antwoord is self aware then it makes for great satire. That these individuals have more money than sense, and their desire for street cred outweighs their desire for decency as evidenced by Ninja's unknowing use of uncool phrases like "interwebs" and "pc computer". The more recent videos lack such self-parody, but still demonstrate the darkness that seems to be inherent in externalizing these cliches. The life of a gangster is inherently violent and frightening, these videos are just reflecting that violence. Thus, anything problematic that comes up due to their music is simply a further critique of hip-hop(at least to a point, I think Ninja should really stop calling DJ Hi-Tek "my nigga," it seems like being controversial for controversy sake rather than being satirical). Watkin as a South African and as a man who has undoubtedly interacted with black Africans must know how much he is belittling the ongoing racial tension that resulted from the Apartheid Regime, it seems inconceivable that he can truly claim to be "a fucking colored" simply because he raps. More likely, he is mocking what he sees as the racial insensitivity of white rappers who wish to be gangster.
So, how can one interpret this madness? I believe that Die Antwoord can be viewed as a reaction to how poor white South Africans interpret and internalize American hip-hop cliches such as the desire to wear bling and be perceived as "gangsta." These cliches however, were clearly not meant for white individuals, let alone South Africans. However, it must be stated the Zef subculture and gang activity in Cape Town clearly lends itself to the gangsta lifestyle to a certain degree, thus allowing Die Antwoord to be coherent in an American or South African context. Regardless, Watkin previously rapped about his disdain for African hip-hop artists who attempted to sound like Americans and his belief that hip-hop was limited by its gangster history. By externalizing these cliches as Die Antwoord, Watkin is demonstrating how inherently ludicrous these cliches are as well the listening public's desire to consume and commodify hip-hop. Indeed, the general inability to critically think about Die Antwoord seems to demonstrate the truth of the critique. Maybe hip-hop will never be respected as a genre by the general public because the intellectual rappers live in poverty (as Watkin knows from first hand experience) while the violent ones live in luxury. Maybe the gangster aspirations of hip-hop artist and consumers is truly a limiting factor on the places that hip-hop can go. Indeed, Die Antwoord may have started with a specific critique, but as they continue to achieve success, they become a living critique, silently mocking the very audience that buys their records.
Further evidence of satire can be found in Watkin's love of stage personas. Watkin is clearly adept at adopting personas, and has made several throughout his career. Ninja could simply be another hip-hop persona akin to the earlier Max Normal. In addition, Die Antwoord's songs are actually littered with references to MaxNormal.TV. For example, when rapping about his luxurious lifestyle, Ninja references his love of "designer vagina," something that Max Normal joking thought of as something that he would never experience because he was unsuccessful as a rapper (this is only one of many times when Die Antwoord claims to be living in a way that Max Normal had aspired to live.) Even more explicitly, the structure of Die Antwoord's Wie Maak Die Jol Vol mimics the fashion that the zef rappers of Laf Nag rapped. This time, however, Watkin is a fellow rapper instead of an observer. The song Super Evil appeared on two previous Watkin Tudor Jones albums (The Fantastic Kill and Good Morning South Africa). The song Beat Boy was originally features on Good Morning South Africa as Rap Rave Megamix. The character of Ninja is clearly meant to remind the listener of Max Normal, albeit a perverted and more foolish Max Normal. This is a strange choice given how much Ninja claims to hate it when people bring up his previous work. However, if it is simply Ninja who hates Max Normal, not Watkin Tudor Jones, then the reasoning makes sense. Of course a violent, self-obsessed man like Ninja would hate to be compared to Max Normal, even if his creator wishes for the audience to make comparisons between the two.
Finally, I have a hard time believing that a man who once rapped, "You're travelling through an indefinite darkness absorbed by the gentle, sentimental hum of your starship / There's always a lot of uncommon phenomena up in your monitor / All-of-a-sudden a beautiful shot of Andromeda pops up, check it out," can also rap, "You make a ninja wanna fuck, bitch you make a ninja wanna fuck," or makes claims of showing off his "inner colored" without at least a wink. He and Yo-landi have been doing amazing, inventive hip-hop for too long to sudden start making lowest-common denominator shit. At worst, the Die Antwoord song "So What?" provides a pretty good answer for the change, "I rap for 20 years, never made a cent. / Borrowed money from my mom to pay the rent. / Now how I'm gonna get out this mess? / Yo-Landi shows me two stripes on the fucking piss test. / (Oh fuck), broke ass Ninja gonna be a daddy. / Little baby Ninja gonna need some nappies. / Gave it my best shot, never pressed stop / Thank God die moederfokeen Antwoord went pop." I'd say forming a derivative yet artsy hip-hop band in order to provide for your child is probably the best reason to sell out.
2. Watkin Tudor Jones is telling the truth and therefore went through a MASSIVE change
Ninja claims to be completely separated from his old projects and that Ninja is truly representative of his personality. Let's take him at his word, I think the next question is What the fuck happened? What could have transformed a sensitive artist into a violent sociopath? Certainly having a child can't account for that great of a change. We may never know, but it certainly gives Die Antwoord the world's most interesting (and probably most insane) front man.
Bottom Line/Christgau Summation: This polarizing rap group is much more complex than many realize. Next time you watch their music videos, really ask yourself what they are trying to say. Are they the logical extreme of the most revolting parts of hip-hop culture, an earnest attempt at making unique music, or something else entirely? If it they aren't satire then they are something beyond my comprehension, which is almost more interesting.
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