CAPE TOWN,

MARCH 30TH, 2010

Today, their 56th day since becoming celebrities, Die Antwoord rappers NINJA and Yo-Landi Vi$$er have come to Golden Acre, a run down shopping centre in Cape Town, to talk about world domination over a Wimpy milkshake.

Since BoingBoing.net blogged about them on February 3rd 2010, the rap rave crew’s “Enter the Ninja” and “Zef Side” music videos have racked up over five million views on YouTube and sparked off a debate about authenticity, class and race. Hipster girls across the world have been heard asking their hairdressers for “the Yo-Landi”, and the biggest players in the recording industry flew them over to LA and New York, desperate to find out the secret of their success. Somewhere along the line, they even squeezed in a coffee with David Lynch and inked a deal with District 9’s director Neill Blomkamp to shoot their next promo. 

In person, NINJA’s harsh barnet, heavy brow, and ‘Pretty Wise’ neck tattoo should be an intimidating blend. But he turns out to be surprisingly polite, as does Yo-Landi, who has one of the most mischievous Afrikaans accents you’re likely to come across. This morning there’s none of the stylized agro wigger attitude that has propelled them from starving artists to the flag-bearers of South African pop music. If anything, they’re still coming to terms with the fact that anyone gives a shit about them. After spending more than a year trawling around the country’s darkest nightclubs, their flash fame has grown so large that a new Cape Town guidebook name checks them alongside Table Mountain and Nelson Mandela. They laugh when hearing this.

“That’s crazy! That’s fucking weird,” says NINJA, genuinely taken aback. “I mean we’ve only been famous for a few weeks! They can make statues of us next to Mandela. Tourists can go and take photos of us with pigeon cack on our heads.”

Unsurprisingly, the guidebook’s author decided not to run an excerpt of NINJA’s infamous “Whatever Man” monologue from the “Enter the Ninja” video, in which he sneers: “I represent South African culture. In this place you get a lot of different things, Blacks, Whites, Colours, English, Afrikaans, Xhosa, Zulu, watookal. I’m like all these different things, all these different people, fucked into one person…” In a country still coming to terms with the apartheid era, NINJA seems unrepentant about broadcasting such a provocative socio-political statement.

“It’s just our style. People think too much,” the 35-year-old rapper says between slurps of frothy pink milk. “We don’t really think that much about what we do, it’s just fun. The country’s run by black people and all kinds of different people live here – it’s like a fucked up cultural fruit salad. We’re really not a perfect rainbow nation. The racism is fucking old school, but in America it’s worse because it’s hidden, whereas here it’s out in the open. Here it was this massive philosophy, this fucking huge wound – it was revealed and people poured medicine on it and it kind of got turned around. It’s boring to me ‘cos everything’s fucking fine. I’m not a racist.”

One of the main reasons why Die Antwoord have blown up so quickly is because their videos play up to social stereotypes and walk a thin line between farce and performance art. In “Enter the Ninja” deformed progeria sufferer Leon Botha lip-syncs and pulls various B-boy poses, Yo-Landi strips out of a schoolgirl uniform and sings about being a butterfly, while NINJA raps infront of a Keith Haring-esque backdrop at a pace that would make the Blackout Crew shout for a rewind. In “Zef Side” they present a tongue-in-cheek vision of the “zef” redneck lifestyle – a poor white township full of gap-toothed drunks, pimped out motorbikes, and most memorably, NINJA dancing in slow mo while Yo-Landi gazes adoringly at his man-junk flapping about in those Pink Floyd boxers. In short, most people don’t know if Die Antwoord is just one big joke.

“He wears those things like every fucking day,” Yo-Landi laughs, looking at the prog rock pants. “They scare me those underpants. When I bought them I had no idea that they’d become famous! He says he washes them, but I’m not sure.”

“I do wash them!” NINJA interjects. “I get scared when I think about losing them. They make me feel safe!” he chuckles before adopting a more sombre tone. “I’m serious about everything. I’m fucking serious about my hairstyle. We’re pop art fused with high art. We’re also full on into performing as a rap group and making films. We get criticism for doing that and it’s retarded. We’re fucking serious about our art and what we do, but we also have a sense of humour. I think it’s because people can’t understand our style so they think it’s a joke. Our music isn’t intellectual; we make music for the common man. What’s really the joke is the state of pop music over the last ten years. But don’t worry ‘cos this is the future. Die Antwoord is here. I’ve drawn a line before, so let’s move forward now.”

NINJA has drawn lines and moved forward many times before. To many people in South Africa, his trailer trash Samurai persona is simply the latest in a long of alter egos for Waddy Jones; the frontman for groups like Evergreen, The Constructus Corporaton, and, along with Yo-Landi, Max Normal. As MC Totally Rad, who Dazed featured in our 2004 South African issue, he released a less polished version of “Beat Boy”, the Bronski Beat-inspired track that eventually found fame in Die Antwoord’s “Zef Side” clip. So why did Waddy decide to become a NINJA? 

“We’ve been working for a long time, but I finally worked out my E=MC2 of entertainment. That’s why we called it The Answer (English translation of Die Antwoord), because it was either going to save our asses or we would be fucked. It’s on that level for me. The other stuff was more experimental and this is more of a signature. I wasn’t unhappy; I wanted to dispose of everything, because everything else that we did was disposable. Plus ninjas are just fucking cool.”

“It’s like a peace gesture,” he smiles, gold glinting in the sun. “I didn’t even know that the Richie Rich one was a gang signs. A lot of people have said that I’m not allowed it, but I just saw it on the back of a taxi! I’m sorry! I won’t do it again! I don’t know… we’re all in the same gang, we’re not scared of anything. I mustn’t be scared. People don’t understand white people saying those things.”

After the milkshakes we drive over to Woodstock to their friend Dragon’s house to take some photos. I say house, but crack shack is probably more suitable. DJ Hi-Tek, the chubby bassline genius behind the zef rap rave sound is still nowhere to be seen.  NINJA informs me that the bedroom producer “is fuckin’ anti-social and doesn’t tour with us either,” so we leave it at that. Yo-Landi sits on a tatty sofa and plays with her rats, Ying and Yang.

Dragon, a huge ripped black guy from the Congo stands in the corner of the crumbling den smoking some seriously stanky weed and shouting “NINJA! Louis Vuitton!” every few minutes. Legend has it that Dragon once woke up in the middle of the night with a knife at his throat and five men pointing guns at his head. He killed them all with his bare hands. Luckily he’s less hectic when stoned, but is a bit pissed off that Die Antwoord didn’t bring him back any LVMH from the States. Or a work visa. He mumbles something about “making people disappear,” and then goes into the next room. “Orinco Ninja Flow” – yes, a Die Antwoord remix of Enya – pumps out of a laptop. NINJA rubs his shirt into the dirty floor. 

Before the shoot wraps, Die Antwoord ask if I want to meet their friend Isaac Mutant, the pioneer of Afrikaans rap. He lives over in Mitchell’s Plain, one of the most hardcore townships in Cape Town. They need to drop off some swag from their recent American trip.

Three hours later, we’re hurtling towards the Cape Flats with six pizzas and a couple of cases of beer in the boot. There’s a full moon and in the distance people are climbing Lions Head by torchlight. “There was a full moon on the third of February,” NINJA says, recalling the night their lives changed and website servers crashed. “After looking at the interweb I looked up at it. Have you ever had 5,000 new emails in your inbox? It’s fucking insane. It means you don’t look at your email anymore. It’s like a wall of sound. Now I don’t sleep at night. I just lie there and look at the roof. And then I get up and walk fucking far in the night.”

“I saw him one morning and I asked what he had been doing,” Yo-Landi chuckles. “He just said, ‘I’m walking.’ I was like, ‘you look mental.’ It was eight in the morning and he had this really mental look in his eyes.” 

As the small hatchback speeds down the quiet N2 motorway, the hyper duo talk excitedly about their love of William Gibson’s Neuromancer, Yo-Landi’s age (“It’s confidential”), being photographed by Roger Ballen for the cover of their debut album $O$, and how they think their music is perceived across South Africa.

“In some magazines we’re billed as a national embarrassment because we’re the biggest South African group ever to make it overseas,” NINJA says. “People are like, ‘Die Antwoord are fucking up the country’s image.’ People hate us, like death threat hate.”

“It’s because we swear so much in Afrikaans,” Yo-Landi continues, talking about their song “Jou Ma Se Poes In ‘N Fishpaste Jar” (“Your Mother’s Cunt In a Fishpaste Jar”). “We say the worst Afrikaans swear words you can possibly think of. We sing them repetitively in our lyrics and to them it’s too much.”

“But young kids,” NINJA says wide-eyed, turning away from the road, “They loooove us. It’s only the old white Afrikaans people who don’t.”

Outside, there are hardly any cars left on the motorway. Yo-Landi cracks open a bottle of cider and gazes out at the low level township houses covering both sides of the road.

NINJA parks in a quiet close in the Rocklands township and we walk into a one-storey concrete flat – Isaac Mutant’s house. Inside, Isaac and a few members of his band are watching a football match while his small daughter runs around shouting. His wife Kim, her sister, and her mother greet the homecoming heroes. After various neon baseball caps and shirts have been shared out, Isaac kicks a few freestyles with a swagger that puts most American rappers to shame. NINJA laps it up, acting as a hype man. The old friends then talk about starting a group called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to teach teenagers how to rap. As they discuss the gangsta lexicon that powers Afrikaans slang, a ten-strong gang walks past the house and peer through the open door at the scene. They look confused, wondering what a group of white people wielding fluro t-shirts and video cameras are doing in their hood. I ask Isaac what he thinks of NINJA’s gang tattoos. 

NINJA changes the subject by giving Isaac a camera to film him rapping a new acapella about a groupie called Miranda. He has the whole place in stitches. Yo-Landi and the girls meanwhile are giggling in the kitchen about a friend called Garlic who nearly died from swallowing his false teeth. It’s a lekker vibe, with Isaac and family hyped up by tales of Die Antwoord’s recent transatlantic adventures with Jimmy Iovine and David Lynch. 

Finishing the beers and pizza, Yo-Landi and NINJA carry out one of Kim’s artworks – a porno mag montage – to the car, say goodbye and take the deserted road back to Zef town. As they drop me off, NINJA gets out and gives me a man hug. “Tell the people from the UK it was real, man. Or if not, say that we’re funky holograms designed by Neill Blomkamp.” 

“Fuckin fuck

the crowd looked like fuckin CGI

ive never seen so many people looking at me like 30 000+!!!!

they loved us like crazy!

it was wild out of control nice!”

Say what you will about Die Antwoord, they make an impact wherever they go, whether that’s making people laugh, squirm or dance. But will their polarizing image, potty slang and gangland provocations come back to haunt them as South African race relations threaten to boil over following the death of Eugene Terre’Blanche? Will they become just another quirky footnote in YouTube history? Or will they become the biggest party rap crew the world’s ever seen? Considering what they’ve achieved in the past few weeks, it’s impossible to predict what will come next. Except chaos. You can expect plenty of that.

Text © TIM NOAKES 2010

Photography © ROSS GARRETT