Die Antwoord blasted, cursed, cussed and moered their way onto the South African music scene's radar in such a way, the Yanks couldn't even resist dipping their toes into the group's own formula of bad, yet entertaining taste. When front man, Ninja, wasn't shaking his tackle in awkward Pink Floyd sleeping shorts, his side-kick, Yo-Landi was barking insults at naaiers, all the while skating on super-thin ice with a flagrant and thrillingly dangerous disregard for conservative sensibilities. Is it a long, drawn out dare to censors? Is it gratuitous? Is it meant to be ironic? I couldn't really care less. Intellectualizing the band's approach is futile. But many of can't resist even a superficial dissection of Die Antwoord's answer to all things boring and banal.
Their mass media exploitation was perhaps needed amid a stifling slew of grossly unoriginal acts, compliments of the likes of the Parlotones and Prime Circle. At first, critics were quick to dismiss Die Antwoord as blog-hopping, genre-contorting meme who wouldn't make it past YouTube. Eet julle woorde mense.
Die Antwoord is in many ways an experiment in boundaries, which in itself is an irony, as the band doesn't seem to know any limits or even give a flying toss about what anyone thinks of them.
Just when you thought it was okay to de-mute your satellite TV decoders and stop ordering the kids to leave the room at the very sight of Ninja's awfully retro hair cut and the sound of Yo-Landi's chipmunk, splenetic fury, they are back to torment censors in 2012. And boy oh boy, does the religious right and its self-righteous ilk have their work cut out for them. Almost two years to the day of the group's twisted birth, will Die Antwoord unleash the next chapter of their lunacy. Their latest offering, Ten$ion, will drop next month, much like an atom bomb. Judging from the video to the first single, 'I fink you freeky', commercial success and a macabre interest from international audiences has gone straight to the duo's head. The diminutive yet scary Yo-Landi, in full demonic glory, develops a taste for Ninja's heart. That's all that needs to be said about the video. Trying to describe it's shock and awe in words simply doesn't do the video any justice. What I can say is it will no doubt test the patience of censors in South Africa. Hell, myopic, still-living-with-mom, failed librarians, in stiff suits, armed with red tape, curse-blocking bleepers, Bibles and Q'rans beyond our borders could even spill their decaffeinated lattes after even a curt viewing of the video.
I wait in anxious, giddy joy to see how far or close the video gets to our TV screens here. It's controversy fodder at its best, which will become the target and subject of many. Quite frankly, it's needed early in a new year, which is already being dominated by hangovers from 2011's bullshit. For a brief moment, we can divert our attention away from navel-gazing about the world's economic woes, the failure of capitalism, the Arab Spring, Julius Malema's ever-growing ego, Helen Zille's constant criticism of everything and anything the ANC government does. For a fleeting moment we have some gratuitous, open-jaw-inducing respite (or nightmares, depending on the degree of your tolerance).
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