So, Die Antwoord. Flipping off Lady Ga Ga after she offered a support spot on her last tour (no I can't name it, no I don't care) certainly landed them a few glistening tonnes of global eyeballs but some of us were onto them before that and feel a bit above all the hissy hoo ha.
I love the Antwoord unreasonably because they are the lost twin to the paint-huffing retard taking up far too much square footage in my psyche. They feed it and caress it. I love Yo-landi's boobies and Ninja's chatty penis. Zef Side is the way a large chunk of the Southern Hemisphere looks once you've stepped away from your resort; the twitching remains of colonial experimentation, like Frankenstein's monster smeared across the landscape. I love them for celebrating that. And I take my hat off to their ashtray-licking shtick because that shit takes balls of steel. I personally could not do it and it's not like I've never been refused entry to a nightclub for the way my hair looked. It takes an iron will to bend a pretty brain around a nasty, janky concept and keep it there long enough to make it pay, but I suppose it gets easier as time goes on and the wardrobe builds up. What Tudor-Jones and Du Toit are doing now isn't that far removed from the art-school angularisms of their previous incarnations, despite appearances; it is as cagey and watchful as ever and make no mistake, committing 'Baby's On Fire' to the aching page is going to char your mental electrodes as much as anything will. They are earning every darn cent. Respect.
The divide between people who perceive and appreciate the performance aspect and those who swallow and expect authenticity from their rock stars is an interesting place. Die Antwoord are great at what they do precisely because they aren't really ghetto. The pisstake is intrinsic to the experience; it does not halt its development and the coupling of white-knuckle appropriation and loving embrace becomes a whole other thing- not ghetto, not satire, but Zef, their dirty baby, another Way. Like it or not, socioeconomic distinction has become as much about academic opportunity and exposure as it is about crude income; these days, true ghetto loves Interscope, the label Antwoord scorned, and will bend over for Interscope's money every time. It's hard to be a holdout for art when you may not be able to spell Interscope or exploitation or even art. Still, I was gobsmacked when I saw the first you-tube accusations of fakery by a cohort who obviously bought the whole cow. If I were raised in conditions that prevented me from ever gaining even a modest grasp on abstract thought, I would be the most cynical person on earth. Lol. I'd still probably be a bitch, though. Not that there's anything wrong with being poor but fancy, mind you. We're poor and fancy as hell.
I also love the Antwoord because they say shut instead of shit; they are my southern hemi homies. Gaze now upon the cock-shaped birthday cake that is 'Fatty Boom Boom" and wonder where it has been your whole life.
I love the Antwoord unreasonably because they are the lost twin to the paint-huffing retard taking up far too much square footage in my psyche. They feed it and caress it. I love Yo-landi's boobies and Ninja's chatty penis. Zef Side is the way a large chunk of the Southern Hemisphere looks once you've stepped away from your resort; the twitching remains of colonial experimentation, like Frankenstein's monster smeared across the landscape. I love them for celebrating that. And I take my hat off to their ashtray-licking shtick because that shit takes balls of steel. I personally could not do it and it's not like I've never been refused entry to a nightclub for the way my hair looked. It takes an iron will to bend a pretty brain around a nasty, janky concept and keep it there long enough to make it pay, but I suppose it gets easier as time goes on and the wardrobe builds up. What Tudor-Jones and Du Toit are doing now isn't that far removed from the art-school angularisms of their previous incarnations, despite appearances; it is as cagey and watchful as ever and make no mistake, committing 'Baby's On Fire' to the aching page is going to char your mental electrodes as much as anything will. They are earning every darn cent. Respect.
The divide between people who perceive and appreciate the performance aspect and those who swallow and expect authenticity from their rock stars is an interesting place. Die Antwoord are great at what they do precisely because they aren't really ghetto. The pisstake is intrinsic to the experience; it does not halt its development and the coupling of white-knuckle appropriation and loving embrace becomes a whole other thing- not ghetto, not satire, but Zef, their dirty baby, another Way. Like it or not, socioeconomic distinction has become as much about academic opportunity and exposure as it is about crude income; these days, true ghetto loves Interscope, the label Antwoord scorned, and will bend over for Interscope's money every time. It's hard to be a holdout for art when you may not be able to spell Interscope or exploitation or even art. Still, I was gobsmacked when I saw the first you-tube accusations of fakery by a cohort who obviously bought the whole cow. If I were raised in conditions that prevented me from ever gaining even a modest grasp on abstract thought, I would be the most cynical person on earth. Lol. I'd still probably be a bitch, though. Not that there's anything wrong with being poor but fancy, mind you. We're poor and fancy as hell.
I also love the Antwoord because they say shut instead of shit; they are my southern hemi homies. Gaze now upon the cock-shaped birthday cake that is 'Fatty Boom Boom" and wonder where it has been your whole life.
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