The Martlet

Die Antwoord $O$ SELF-RELEASED

Last year a bizarre video charted on YouTube starring a skinny, white, tattooed South African with a flattop haircut rapping in half-English/half-Afrikaans drawl. Backing him up on the choruses was a pony-tailed blonde with helium in her lungs, and for spice the director threw in a few clips of a Cape Town progeria sufferer named Leon Botha.

The video for Die Antwoord’s (or “the answer”) song “Enter The Ninja” now has 4.5 million views on You- Tube. They are also thriving due to the controversy that was stirred up by the revelation that the group was a joke invented by an ex-improv group.

A few months ago Die Antwoord’s debut album, $O$, was released for free on their website. While it’s disappointing that the band and their “Zef” genre (a mix of dance pop and American gangsta rap) are invented, I’ve decided to pretend they’re legit because it’s more fun that way.

The strange rail-thin frontman is Ninja, otherwise known as Waltkin Tudor Jones, is apparently a standby in the South African hiphop scene; his little-girl backup vocalist is Yolandi Visser (I mean, Yo-Landi Vi$$er) and the fat guy in the jersey is none other than some guy with a “pc computer” named DJ Hi-Tek.

There’s a particular allure to music that has unintelligible lyrics; Sigur Ros is probably the example you’ve heard of, but world music has been around for ages (though usually just the domain of aging hippies, a.k.a. your parents).

The choruses on Die Antwoord’s album are pretty easy to deal with, but on tracks like “WAT POMP” and “WAT KYK JY” the lyrics just flow over you in some witchy frappe of Dutch and English slang. DJ Hi-Tek’s “next level beats?” shine through like memories of the MuchDance 2008 compilation CD, and a coterie of unknown South African gangsters spit pidgin rhymes punctuated by Vi$$er’s pixie-tuned vocal chords.

This band is the Lady Gaga of hip hop; too weird to live, too rare to die and you can’t look away. Just be careful if you watch the “Zef Side” video – you might see more than your fair share of Ninja’s pork sword fencing skills through his Pink Floyd boxer shorts.