Everyone has an inner Zef

I've had a huge cultural-context/intellectual/aesthetic boner for Die Antwoord for a while now, but only recently started digging beyond Max Normal.TV level research.
I've been reading a lot articles from last February, right when they got big across the interwebs. I like to think all this is more interesting to think about a year later. Retrospection.



"But it's a big old prank, right? It's not realllllllll!"

Gangsta skillz and next level beats aside, you can call Ninja and Die Antwoord a hugely successful prank on unsuspecting music and culture nerds worldwide, Ali G style, as NY Magazine so eloquently eludes: "Because Ninja has performed under different personae, it was then assumed Die Antwoord was an elaborate prank; if that's the case, we salute his commitment to a strangely enticing character."

But I think it's more than that.



Context is a key word in all discussion I've encountered about Die Antwoord, accusatory, acclamatory or apathetic. One the reasons I like them so much is that Die Antwoord is a big ironic smile in the face of the ignorant West (also, they're fucking weird). Their exoticism and huge non-verbal cultural statements work so well because we don't know shit about modern South African culture: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Djj9aNHwj4 @ 0:15

From Waddy Jones' wikipedia article: "Die Antwoord appears to some to be a presentation of entertainment personas rather than that of intrinsic and authentic cultural identities." Fuck that. Every performer has an "entertainment persona." If meat-dress-wearing Lady Gaga is an authentic cultural identity, then so is Die Antwoord. "Life as art, art as life." These people know what's up and are more committed to that notion than Nietzsche, Warhol or Germanotta ever was.



In the end, an article by Richard Poplak in Canada's The Walrus Magazine (and it's brilliant follow up) pretty much sums it all up about Die Antwoord, race issue and all: "By moving to the [Cape Town] flats and buying wholesale into local gangsta culture, Waddy is reframing South Africanism anew. While Afrikaans punks positioned themselves in opposition to the ultra-conservative, Calvanist ethos of die volk, what Die Antwoord are doing is not an act of rejection, but an act of embracing."

"All that remains is to widen the context," he says.

Die Antwoord is huge. They are like Gorillaz in real life. They are live action Seffrican Ninja Turtles. They are exported-hip hop Otherness fucked into Lady Gaga and made into a lifestyle. This is real, and you've never seen zef so fresh.

Full flex,
Adam