Die Antwoord | Zef Side

Yeah, we’re still a little hooked. If you’ve never seen Die Antwoord before, have a wonderful time trying to get the South African hip hop threesome out of your head once you’ve suffered their trite hooks. I don’t know what it is, but I can’t help but think they’re the coolest thing to come from the Cape since Mandela was escorted off Robben Island. The lyrics are straight up absurd, chapter and verse, and the candy floss beats are flippin’ ridiculous. Yet here I am, watching it for the 100th time, positively glued. Enjoy Zef Side, and then scope Enter The Ninja, the audible vehicle that shot the band to space…

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.

That was two months ago and it still haunts! Ugh.

PS. If you have to worry about NSFW language, don’t press play until after you get home. Afrikaners are strikingly agile, bilingually, especially those raised in the historically profane Cape. Now, gaan kak in die mielies.