Part of Jul 2012 by

I Have No Clue What the Question is, but Die Antwoord is Dangerous

Like most people I know who have been mentally damaged by big-corporation-cubicle-life one screen is just not enough for me.  You gotta have at least two and if your cortex is really dented you can juggle three (not counting the TV).

The justification for this is of course computer screens make some tasks just plain easier;  for the current me those tasks being video-editing and interview transcribing. (Yes, I still transcribe. Gotta keep one foot in the long ago, I guess.)

When my secondary screen is not being used for something worthwhile I slap on the morphine drip of the Facebook news feed so I can be distracted by the banal and frustrated humanity which of course means myself because I’m wasting my time with Facebook.    I have a lot FB “friends” who are big scary people who are in big scary bands that are actually soccer moms and dads asking, “Why in the hell wasn’t I smart enough to become a pop star when I was 17 instead of covering myself with fake blood and wearing 80 pounds of leather onstage? Ugh, I’m 35 years old carrying around fake goat skulls!”  Well to finally put the peanut butter in the chocolate very recently I saw a post on the morphine drip that said, “Well that was disturbing.”    This coming from a guy who wears ghost paint and fake blood like its suntan lotion onstage.  Then, about a half an hour later, I saw a similar post from one of the scariest women I have ever met.  So what scared the scary people?  This:

I wasn’t disturbed; I was hooked immediately.  Die Antwoord has so much natural “it factor” they could hang several hundred pounds of it from Lady Gaga’s antler shoulder pads and still be able to  frighten Bieber-Bot‘s latest hairdo back to the home world.   One caveat is that I am writing this after watching most of the videos they have on youtube several times.  I’m not saying I “get” Die Antwoord.  I don’t even “get” normal people let alone some freaky-weird performance artists from South Africa.   And that’s what Die Antwoord are:  Performance artists who work in basically every form they feel like (including the ol’ cheeky comedy) it’s just that most of it is set to some seriously catchy tunes.  Here is one of their mini-films that has almost nothing to do with music.    BTW I recommend that people watch a minimum of three Die Antwoord videos of various scope before they slam down the judgment mallet and please engage your sense of open minded humor when need be.  So yes this is homework.

The players in the Die Antwoord world are Ninja (the dude) and Yo-Landi Vi$$er (the soon to be super model with the worst hair cut in the history of hair follicles.)   I’m going to jump out of the parenthesis for a second and just say this:  If bowl-cut-mullets become the trend with the teenage younglings here in America I will laugh myself silly due to the vindication of the bowl cut I suffered in grade school.  Die Antwoord are actually cultural ambassadors and seemingly leaders of the whole South African Zef counter-culture movement which is fascinating in itself.  Zef is being poor but having style and sex appeal.  The term is based on the Ford Zephyr which was at one time meant something special to the South African middle class.  Now for some culture shock here’s a Die Antwoord collaboration with Xhosa rapper Wanga about rejecting circumcision which actually stems from the amount of these poorly executed medical procedures that lead to a ludicrous amount of deaths for such a seemingly basic event.  The video is fairly offensive on a few American palate levels and don’t watch it at work unless you work at a shop that sells wooden dicks and isn’t bothered by witches and demons and parkas made of faux white rats.

Die Antwoord’s master plan is to release 5 albums with a full length feature film between each album release.  I usually breakout the bullshit call when I hear stuff like that but I’m confident they will pull it off.  And not only will they pull it off but there will be some weird brain expansion along the journey but that is what music and art is all about.  If you would like to check out Die Antwoord live they will be playing Lollapalooza in Chicago on August 3rd and Denver on August 6th at the Ogden Theatre and many other US dates check their website for info.

dieantwoord.com