this is an awesome interview!

http://web.archive.org/web/20070302095958/www.maxnormal.tv/interview2.php

“kwaai ouens! (cool, guys) lekker to hear from you.

interesting how die antwoord has exploded within a really short time. it’s cool to view him juxtaposed to jack parow for example, who claims to be from the same part of town: other side of the “boerewors curtain”, or the northern suburbs of cape town. as francois van coke from fokofpolisiekar and van coke cartel said: the bellville rock scene has unfortunately become “cool” in itself, which is wrong – a fuckup. but it is understandable that suburbia offers little other than drinking, screwing, malls for entertainment. and so kids can get round to jamming as a catharsis. so parow and die antwoord are in a sense 3rd generation wave of muso’s hailing from that neck of the woods that is regarded as the boring as fuck middle class trap.

checked [your] links now, and was amazed at the parallels to what i wanted to say, how they are pretty well informed, and one of the comments gets it exactly:

“Think about the history that makes something like Die Antwoord possible: African music that came to America with slavery, evolved through Blues, Jazz, Funk, Soul, Rap and Hip-Hop, and then globalized through modern technology, returning to Africa, and collided with modern South Africa, in all her gritty ambivalence, to create Zef. Full circle.

Rap and politics have always been intertwined. On the surface, it may look like Die Antwoord are poking fun at their local rednecks/chavs/neds, but look closer, and you will see serious race, class and political power issues. Good stuff.”

both jack parow and antwoord are loaded with the issues. 1 omission is that “doos dronk” (raging drunk, whihch doesn’t capture the profanity) also gets into gender issues, deomstic violence. the first time i heard it it was a little hard to listen to, slightly offensive even to me. but like eminem one must take it all with a ladle of salt. it’s in jest, but also social commentary. excellent collaboration between fokofpolisiekar (fuckoff police truck obviously), jack parow (a truly shitty suburb with an unhealthy abundance of scummy Zefs) and Die antwoord. and make sure to check out parow’s “cooler as ekke” (cooler than me). it’s so full of sterotypes and cultural nuances that it is hard to explain it all, but funny as fuck. and it’s liberating to laugh at ones self. huge in the afrikaans psyche – the search for our identity as modern africans who no longer associate with the okes who faught blacks on the one side and the british on the other….does it make sense?

know nothing of leon botha. it makes local culture more interesting!

also insightful (cos i know only about MN’s existence, never followded their stuff, was out of the party scene already – too much coke and attitude for my liking):

“Max Normal and Max Normal.TV are two different projects with only Watkin Tudor Jones being in both of them. Max Normal was a band with a mean-riff playing bassist, an actual live Japanese drummer playing drums and loop samples (often at the same time), DJ Sibot (later from Constructus Corporation and The Real Estate Agents) and Jones. Max Normal.TV was an audiovisual live multimedia mashup featuring DJ Hi Tek, Yo-Landi Vi$$er, Jones and random collaborators.

Every project Waddy’s been involved with has had a distinctive concept that ties in with the music, the lyrics, the visual presentation and perception. The bigger picture is always a performance art piece. It’s always brilliantly constructed and authentic. At the heart of it lies truth and sincerity. Who cares whether it’s real or not.”"

Those “friends” you get when you become popular, aren’t friends.

Regards.

I had to see it to believe it
http://www.himelfarbfilms.com/1/post/2010/04/die-antwoord-i-am-your-butterfly.html

Nah just kidding, what is it, like a bus or something?

So then, I have to ask the most basic postmodern question: At what point does ironic production become simply more of what whatever is being satired?

If the viewer isn’t in on the joke (*raises hand*), then the production is indistinguishable from what it’s ironically parodying, then the producers are simply being more of what they’re commenting on.

No?

Was it supposed to happen like this? I mean, they’re great entertainment and all, but am I going to be listening to this when I’m 60? Maybe I don’t understand anything about music and culture after all, because it sure looks like it.

Their popularity stems almost exclusively from that first “interview” video that was shot of them, a video so brilliantly done, you can watch the whole thing over and over and still not be sure if they’re being genuine or if it’s meant as a farce. This is the genius of Die Antwoord. If they manage to keep this balance, there is a future for them, if they take themselves too seriously, they have a lot of work to do to keep their music relevant.

Priceless!!