Die Antwoord is a South African alternative hip hop group formed in Cape Town in 2008. The group consists of rappers Ninja (Watkin Tudor Jones) and Yolandi Visser (Anri du Toit), a male/female duo, and producers HITEK5000 and Lil2Hood. Their image revolves around the South African counterculture movement known as zef and has incorporated work by other artists associated with the movement, such as photographer Roger Ballen. Die Antwoord has had mainstream success worldwide. Their albums have charted in the top 50 in Europe and North America, as well as charting in the top 10 in Australia. Their music has also been featured in the hit video game franchise Far Cry. 2010's Enter the Ninja did well in Australia and the UK, peaking in the top 50 in both countries.

Background

Die Antwoord's male vocalist, Watkin "Ninja" Tudor Jones, was part of the South African music scene for many years, fronting acts such as The Original Evergreen, MaxNormal.TV and The Constructus Corporation. Their debut album $O$ relates to their earlier work, specifically MaxNormal.TV's Good Morning South Africa. In the album, multiple tracks are sampled from, or are exact copies of songs on Good Morning South Africa, such as the "Rap Rave Megamix" (where the first glimpses of Jones's Ninja character was seen) were later reformed into the "Zef Side" video, featuring a few verses from "Beat Boy". Ninja told Rolling Stone, "Everything I did before Die Antwoord was me experimenting, messing around and trying to find Die Antwoord . . . everything before it was disposable. It was all throwaway." Die Antwoord observed that journalists and critics, particularly in the United States, frequently ask if their creative output is a joke or a hoax. When asked if he was playing a character, Ninja said, "Ninja is, how can I say, like Superman is to Clark Kent. The only difference is I don't take off this fokken Superman suit." They have described their work as "documentary fiction" and "exaggerated experience" designed for shock value. Ninja told Spin: "People are unconscious, and you have to use your art as a shock machine to wake them up. Some people are too far gone. They'll just keep asking, 'Is it real? Is it real?' That's dwanky. That's a word we have in South Africa, 'dwanky.' It's like lame. 'Is it real?' You have to be futuristic and carry on. You gotta be a good guide to help people get away from dull experience." Die Antwoord is known for their cult following, in particular the unusually prolific creation of fan art by their followers.

Zef

Die Antwoord's musical and visual style incorporates elements of "zef" culture, described as modern and trashy, appropriating out-of-date, discarded cultural elements. Yo-Landi said, "It's associated with people who soup their cars up and rock gold and shit. Zef is, you're poor but you're fancy. You're poor but you're sexy, you've got style." Their lyrics are performed in Afrikaans and English.

History

2008–2010: Formation and release of debut album $O$, 5 and Ekstra

Die Antwoord formed in 2008. Their name is. Their debut album, $O$, was made available as a free download on their official website. A song from the album, "Wie Maak die Jol Vol", features Cape Flats rappers Garlic Brown (a.k.a. Knoffel Bruin), Scallywag, Isaac Mutant, and Jaak Paarl. "Wat Pomp?" features South African rapper Jack Parow. He is also featured in "Doos Dronk" along with Fokofpolisiekar. The album cover was shot by photographer Clayton James Cubitt. In 2009 South African cinematographer Rob Malpage (along with co-director Ninja) shot the video for their single "Enter the Ninja". The song incorporates elements of Smile.dk's song "Butterfly", famous for appearing in the Dance Dance Revolution series. The video features Cape Town artist and turntablist Leon Botha. The video received millions of views online nine months later, which featured on a number of high-traffic blog sites, most notably BoingBoing. This forced them to move their website to a US-based hosting provider to handle the traffic. Following the success of the video, Die Antwoord signed a record deal with Interscope Records. In April 2010, they performed their first international concert at the Coachella Music Festival, in front of 40,000 people. They then toured internationally in support of $O$. The EP "5" was the first official release by Die Antwoord on a major record label, Cherrytree Records (an imprint of Interscope Records). The EP features some previously released material, as well as one new track and a remix. "Fish Paste" was released as a promotional single. Pitchfork Media made the entire EP available to stream on 12 June 2010. Later in 2010, an EP titled Ekstra was released. Shortly after, they joined the 2011 Big Day Out circuit, which took them to New Zealand and Australia, sharing back-to-back sold-out sideshows with M.I.A. At the end of 2010, Die Antwoord won the Myspace Best Music Video of 2010 award for their debut video, "Enter the Ninja".

2011–2013: Ten$ion, record label dispute

In November 2011, Die Antwoord left Interscope Records over a dispute concerning their upcoming album and its lead single, "Fok Julle Naaiers". Visser explained that Interscope "kept pushing us to be more generic" in order to make more money: "If you try to make songs that other people like, your band will always be shit. You always gotta do what you like. If it connects, it's a miracle, but it happened with Die Antwoord." Die Antwoord formed their own independent label, Zef Recordz, and released their new album Ten$ion through it. The release was in association with the Good Smile Company and Downtown Records, which handled the marketing and distribution for the record worldwide. Ten$ion included three more singles following "Fok Julle Naaiers": "I Fink U Freeky", "Baby's on Fire", and "Fatty Boom Boom". The singles included on Ten$ion began to bring Die Antwoord more into the global spotlight as they were invited to perform on American talk shows and featured in an Alexander Wang advertisement. However, the album was met with average to poor reviews by many critics. Ten$ion was followed up with a non-album single, "XP€N$IV $H1T", as well as a remix of Mims' song "This Is Why I'm Hot", "Diz Iz Why I'm Hot".

2014: Donker Mag and further touring

Following the release of "XP€N$IV $H1T", Die Antwoord set out on a brief tour across Europe from June to July. Soon after they began touring, snippets for a new single called "Cookie Thumper!", which was to be accompanied by a music video, were released. Around the release of their new single, Die Antwoord also announced the title of their third album, Donker Mag, which was released on 3 June 2014. The video for "Cookie Thumper!" was released on 18 June 2014 on Noisey's YouTube channel. The video has over 37 million views. On 20 May 2014, "Pitbull Terrier", the second music video from Donker Mag, was released on Die Antwoord's YouTube channel. The video has over 49 million views. The third and final single "Ugly Boy" was released on 4 November 2014.

2015–2016: EP release and Mount Ninji and da Nice Time Kid

In February 2015, Die Antwoord announced that they had started work on new material with DJ Muggs of Cypress Hill. On 19 May 2016 the duo released a mixtape titled Suck on This on SoundCloud. The mixtape features productions from DJ Muggs (known on the album as The Black Goat) and God (formerly known as DJ Hi-Tek, the producer of the group ). The track list includes the previously released "Dazed and Confused" and "Bum Bum" as well as "Gucci Coochie", a collaboration with Dita Von Teese. A teaser for the song's video was released on 18 May 2016. However, the music video was never released, and is presumed to be scrapped. The mixtape also includes remixes for some of the group's previous songs including "I Fink You Freeky", "Fok Julle Naaiers", and "Pitbull Terrier". On 22 July 2016, it was announced that the album would be titled Mount Ninji and da Nice Time Kid, originally called "We Have Candy". The album was released on 16 September 2016. The first video from the album, "Banana Brain", was released on 31 August 2016. It has accumulated over 21 million views. The second video from the album, "Fat Faded Fuck Face", was released on Vimeo rather than on YouTube, due to its adult content, on 16 December 2016. The video has over 1.2 million views.

2017–present: House of Zef, 2024 tour

In early 2017, Die Antwoord announced via social media networks that they were to release their final album, titled The Book of Zef, in September 2017 and disband immediately after. Later the band revealed that the name was changed to "27". The first single, "Love Drug", was released on 5 May 2017. A second single "2•GOLDEN DAWN•7" was released on 22 June 2018. On 3 May 2019, Die Antwoord released the single "DntTakeMe4aPoes." The song features South African rapper G Boy. A second video published on the same day revealed that the title of the upcoming album would be House of Zef, and that it would feature several amateur guest rappers from South Africa. A US tour was announced for late 2019. However, an unlisted video on Die Antwoord's channel revealed it was postponed to 2020 to finish the album as well as other projects. Gqom single, "Baita Jou Sabela" was released on 30 November 2019, featuring South African rapper Slagysta. House of Zef was released on 16 March 2020, without any previous announcement by the band. In 2022, Die Antwoord made a comeback to the music industry following a prolonged hiatus with the release of several non-album singles. In 2023, they announced a 2024 tour that took place across Europe inclusive of countries including Italy, Switzerland, England, France and Hungary.

Other ventures

In an interview with Exclaim! magazine in 2010, the group revealed they have a five album plan. According to Ninja, "We'll be dropping films between each of the albums, feature films... We have one we're working on for next year called The Answer. It's like the story of how Die Antwoord started. But that's like, our power, and where our energy is at right now." They have filmed a short film with American filmmaker Harmony Korine. The short film premiered at SXSW as Umshini Wam (in reference to the Zulu struggle song "Umshini wami") and features "furry costumes, wheelchairs, a music video breakdown, and plenty of zef slang." The film is available online. In 2012, they did a campaign for Alexander Wang's T range. In 2014, it was revealed that Die Antwoord would appear in the Neill Blomkamp film Chappie. In an interview, Ninja states that "Neill is, like, our favorite director, so when he asked us to be in Chappie, it was like a complete freak-out". In the film, Die Antwoord star as two gangsters (also named Ninja and Yolandi) who act like the parents of Chappie, a sentient robot, and teach him how to be a gangster. The film was released on 4 March 2015. In 2019, Die Antwoord started releasing an online reality web series called ZEF TV. There are currently 8 episodes which make up the first season. Later that year, it was revealed that they would be releasing a documentary called Is It Real? that had been in the works for 10 years, as well as a feature film called The Flower from the Outside World.

Artistry

In a teaser video for the Ten$ion album, a character that resembles Jane Alexander's the Butcher Boys was featured. Due to a copyright claim, the video was removed. Anton Kannemeyer's Black Gynecologist was inspiration for the "Fatty Boom Boom" music video scene, in which a Parktown prawn is removed from Lady Gaga.

Video games

Several of Die Antwoord's songs have been featured in the open-world action video games Far Cry 3 and Far Cry New Dawn, "I Fink U Freeky", "Fatty Boom Boom", "Cookie Thumper" and "Shit Just Got Real".

Discography

Studio albums

EPs

Mixtapes

Singles

Remixes

Other appearances

Music videos

Members

Collaborators

Roger Ballen is a frequent collaborator of Die Antwoord, who say their artwork is heavily inspired by his photography. Ballen helped design the set for their music video "Enter the Ninja". Ballen co-directed the "I Fink You Freeky" music video. The Erdmann Contemporary Photographers Gallery in Cape Town featured some works of Ballen from the video. Bitter Comix's creator Anton Kannemeyer released some work featuring Die Antwoord in 2011. He described the song "Doos Dronk" with the words "if ever there were a song that sounded like Bitter Comix, this is it."

$O$

Ten$ion

Donker Mag

Mount Ninji and da Nice Time Kid

House of Zef

House of Zef features several South African rappers, who were included to bring a spotlight onto them.

Former touring members