We promised ourselves we won’t get drawn into this. This is the week in which Cape Town viral rappers Die Antwoord released the music video for their new single “Fok julle Naaiers.” The music video contains some Die Antwoord staples (spiders and scorpions come out of rapper Ninja’s mouth while he throws around the word Nigger, and tattooed coloured men are used to reference prison gang culture in Cape Town; the latter a big part of his persona). But there’s also these lines from their DJ, Hi-Tek: “You can’t touch me faggot …” and “I’ll fuck you till you love me faggot.” See for yourselves:
The group was roundly criticized for the homophobia and the (apparent) glorification of rape in the lyrics.It appeared their American label, Interscope, was also was uncomfortable with the video and song lyrics.
Die Antwoord then quickly announced that they were splitting with Interscope. They would now release their new album themselves.
But here is where it actually gets interesting (the rest is the same old boring vintage Die Antwoord, remixed). Ninja decided to film a video statement, where he presumably sets out to explain the use of homophobic/racist epithets in “Fok Julle Naaiers”:
His first defense: DJ Hi-Tek is gay. So it’s ok for the group to drop the ‘f’ bomb liberally. That argument, in itself, is a stupid defense: i.e. membership of an objectified minority group means you can be racist/sexist/homophobic.
Ninja then accused “some people from America” of being “heavy sensitive,” thusly implying that South Africans are okay with calling each other faggot as a term of endearment. Hardly true–especially not in a country where lesbians are subjected to “corrective rape,” gay men to hate crimes and Evangelical Christianity (with its clearly expressed homophobia) has a strong hold on the population.
Third, Ninja concludes his use of racist epithets with the claim that black South Africans are okay with white South Africans calling them Nigger. And vice versa. More news to me.
Finally–in a strange turn–Waddy said South Africa is a “rainbow nation” and that “we have the pay off line ‘Simunye’ we are one.” What he forgot to tell his audience is that both the descriptors–the first (rainbow nation) was dreamed up by politicians, and the second (Simunye) by advertising copy writers to promote a TV channel–are outdated (they last had currency in the mid-1990s) and widely discredited (think the politics of the movie Invictus) by anyone who lives in the ‘real’ – that is, the vast majority who continue to experience nothing but the failure of that rainbow promise.
Waddy Jones’ defenders will probably says he was in “character,” the whole thing satire (original video and ‘apology’ alike), and that he is being ironic and deliberate.
Perhaps the fact that I am writing about their charade now will also be read as evidence that they’re good.
Crybaby
you’re right, die antwoord are crybabies for not taking their criticism well
I think you may all be missing the irony in Ninja’s words. To me it sounds like great social commentary.
So happy theyre not another PC corporate makeover band… They bring something fresh to the table… I give them a 10 out of ten for entertainment….
i think a lot of this over analysis is basically, fear, fear of that which people do not understand.
Honestly, it reminds me of when Nirvana came out. “What are these low rent underemployed slackers from Seattle screaming about into the microphone? This nihilism cannot stand! If only we went back to the wholesome music of the 80s, like Warrant and Poison.”
yeah, maybe, though “Faggot” is “Faggot”, you know? It’s in there and not in a “hey gurl” kinda way.
Rather interesting that no one seems to acknowledge the fact that the “DJ-Hi Tek will f*** you in the a$$ bit is a repurposed quote taken from Mike Tyson, American boxer. http://www.complex.com/sports/2012/06/recent-history-of-homophobia-in-sports/homophobia-25
The more you know! *south african rainbow of people goes by led by the Ninja and him saying ‘sem onje!’*
Being gay myself, I think its lovely to take back and desensitize a word so negatively charged. we all come from different cultures and ideas and languages. And eventually , these words are going to have to fall away if we ever think we’ll have the chance to succeed as a whole. the word itself means nothing. its the energy behind it that holds water. get over it. find some real news to blog about.
Die Antwoord’s words are truth, he is often creating music explaining peoples views of Afrikaan culture. This is infact a parody stating that the views of South Afrika are false. Racism would never leave if the words ‘nigger’ and ‘faggot’ weren’t used lightly. The fact that they still mean so much offencively suggests that the worldwide society can not let go of the past and feel the need to pick holes in everything that’s considered ‘wierd’ or ‘un PC’ If you want to critisise their art, go and learn the Afrikaan culture and then see if you really ‘understood’ them.
sweetie, they are marketing their art in my own country and context. They gotta know calling me faggot in a video I’ll see over here doesn’t get by with an excuse “well we’re South African, you have to come to us and learn why it’s OK for us to call you a faggot”. I do not think many South African gay people are cool with being called faggot by a pop band.
The overly PC crap in this nation is staggering. We find some gossip to hang on to and use it as rallying cries it is really sad. Why is it when a artist/group bucks the main stream the slander and attack pieces start getting written. The industry is the problem. They force satanic videos on the public, depicting dying young, bondage, and other perversity to young children. I am not religious but I find it amusing we do not speak about any of that. Why because it is the mainstream industry doing it. If they want to make perverse rap aimed at influencing children that is fine. The moment a South African group uses words Americans find offensive it is up in arms time.
This is surely the result of these weirdos growing up around and amongst niggers.
You sound like an American who watches too much MSNBC.
Die Antwoord the best band in the last 10 years or more…