Die Antwoord

Photography by Kobus Holnaaler

Zef: from low avangarde to hi-fi and back
by ANTÓNIO CERVEIRA PINTO

I love being naive about music. I really am! I like it, or I don't like it. I miss almost of the gossip though.

I listen to Hip hop sampling and rap poetry as some kind of updated ex-low pop art, visually powerful, swingy, rythmic, intellectually agressive, multilayered if good enough, marvellous repetitive. It's like a techno realization of post-modern de-construction, a wall defacement, a post-marxian dérive, a suburban psychogeography. Tonight I was struck by the almost dark, deeply cool, dry and clever Die Antwoord. What a punch in my sophisticated perusal rituals! Entering the web of ¥o-Landi Vi$$er ["Fuck da System, I Got My Own System"], Ninja ["If u going thru hell … Keep Ging"] and DJ Hi-Tek ["DJ Hi-Tek Will Fuck U in The Ass"] is like feeling an exploded ex-museum crashing into my face. What the fuck is the white cube for?

For more:

• Die Antwoord website 
• Die Antwoord in Wikipedia 
• Zef definition by ¥o-Landi Vi$$er: "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."