Just how to unpack this Pandora’s box of darkly-eclectic gothic-rap-rave splendor… albeit, a treasure trove of years past but still unsurprisingly relevant and dark-culturally significant.

“Sexy boys, fancy boys,
Playboys, bad boys,
I fink u freeky and I like you a lot”

Die Antwoord, meaning “The Answer” in Afrikaans, are the duo of Watkin Tudor “Ninja” Jones and Anri “Yolandi Visser” du Toit (oft accused of being the cause of weird boners). Together, they began their entry to stardom as intellectuals, which upon falling relatively flat, brought Yolandi to the realization that perhaps their aim was directionally-challenged and rather being wildly unconventional (but way more fun) might be the key instead, and indeed it was.

“Motherfuckers get buzzed off the spice that I bring
Guess who’s got the party jumpin’?
Glow in the dark rave, aura pumping
It’s nice and different, yo fuck the system”

The video’s art is distinctive if not darkly, beautiful and intriguing. Created by Roger Ballen, an American artist living in Johannesburg, South Africa, his oeuvre spans five decades and is self-described as existential psychodramas that touch the subconscious mind and evoke the underbelly of the human condition. They aim to break through the repressed thoughts and feelings by engaging him in themes of chaos and order, madness or unruly states of being, the human relationship to the animal world, life and death, universal archetypes of the psyche, and experiences of otherness.

.

The song begins sparsely with Yolandi’s lyrics lamenting her love of the atypical deviant boys while inelegantly donned in a murky bath-pool with soul-scorched eyes — she appears at times to be addressing a live duck. Simple suburban beats wash electric and back, bubbling to and from admission to submission all the while showcasing the band and their local friends’ characters acting out their odd behaviors, and eventually culminating in Ninja’s sped-up rap diatribe, “I can make a million little motherfuckers jump. Jump motherfucker jump. Jump motherfucker jump” before ending where it began with Yolandi sinking into the depths of her ebon-oozy tub.

“Pomp your speakers, yo rock your body
In God we trust, you can’t fuck with us“

“When directly confronted as a sham artist, (Ninja) stated, “People are unconscious, and you have to use your art as a shock machine to wake them up.” Amen, brother Ninja, amen.

~

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LABEL: ZEF RECORDZ