A video for "I Fink U Freeky," from Die Antwoord's new release "TEN$ION." Co-directed by the band and Johannesburg, South Africa-based photographer Roger Ballen (the first of what I hope may be many more collaborations between them).

Read more in Music at Boing Boing

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

MORE: die antwoord • electronic • johannesburg • music • ninja • rap • rave • roger ballen • south africa • video • yo-landi vi$$er • zef

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

http://maxfenton.com Max Fenton

The gigantic “co-directed by Roger Ballen” took a few minutes to sink in. I was, like, this totally… there’s some photographer… who… OH. Oh. Wow.
Tyler Roy-Hart

there are some things to like about Die Antwoord but I can’t help but feel they are trying too damn hard to be Disturbing or whatever

“Don’t try to outweird me, son, I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal”
- Guest
  
  Agree. As Black Flag said, “Don’t need your bogus attitudes. Got enough of my own.”
  
  I find U post-apocalyptic freak show disturbing. I don’t like it like that.
http://twitter.com/petitepoubelle petite poubelle

Ice Ice Baby.
Shibi_SF

Thanks for this. Now, I can’t get the images out of my mind and I’m walking around my office chanting in a high-pitched voice: “i fink you’re freaky and i like you a lot”!
http://www.commodorecrush.com/ Commodore Crush

They need to hire Chris Cunningham.
- bcsizemo
  
  The first time I watched this that is exactly what I thought…
  
  I think if he directed a video for them my mind would be blown for a good 5 minutes.
  
  Just in case anyone isn’t familiar with his work, here is a sample music video:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Az_7U0-cK0
  - awjt
    
    OK, I love Die Antwoord but that Aphex Twin video kicks Die Antwoord’s ass seven ways to Sunday.
morgaen

Is this a tribute to LFO?
Fatlimey

You can see Ballen’s influence right away. http://www.rogerballen.com/images/igallery/bhouse/images/08_Contemplation%2C%202004.jpg
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_FKHDCIS27XPE6ZFY6MWMN5UYRQ grima

David Lynch lies awake late at night wishing he were Die Antwoord.
Brandon Williamson

All of the tracks from the new album have made their way onto YouTube if anyone is interested.

http://www.youtube.com/user/ChaimTaylor2
- Shibi_SF
  
  Thanks, Brandon!
Wild Rumpus

I fink they’re freaky and I like them a lot!
http://twitter.com/nothingsmonstrd nothingsmonstered

That’s the most disturbing thing I’ve seen since the last time I saw a Die Antwoort video.

Have you seen this picture of a younger Ninja & Yolandi with their daughter, Sixteen?
- Cowicide
  
  This one?
  - Dwayne Holmberg
    
    Hayzeuss! They look so..normal.
    - Timothy Jeffries
      
      you mean max normal :)
msbpodcast

Die Antwoort were in the awkward position of being considered too mainstream last year.

They were like Green Day but South African.

They gladly ditched their label and have taken to the ‘net instead.I don’t think their sales are hurting… I already got TenSion off of iTunes. :-)
http://evilbobdayjob.blogspot.com/ Deidzoeb

I’ve noticed that some internet video celebs keep our interest because we can’t tell their age or gender at first glance, sometimes after dozens of views. Young looking people who sound older like Tay Zonday (Chocolate Rain), Andy Milonakis, Keenan Cahill, even “Fred”. Can’t think of strong examples of androgynous people except maybe Chris Crocker, or Nataly Dawn from Pomplemoose. Maybe you can think of others.

Anyway, Die Antwoord has layer upon layer of ambiguity. Close-ups of Yolandi’s face and bangs look like she could be a boy. Her age is ambiguous. The accent is hard for Americans to place. Multiple albinos in this vid? Other videos featured Leon Botha who looks young and old at the same time.
http://profile.yahoo.com/LZDXSFSXDZ74K76WHM7YM22N7U Thomas

High props for the destruction of the Dr. Dre headphones.
- bcsizemo
  
  Irony…
  In Evil Boy Diplo is using Beats…
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=KbW9JqM7vho#t=227s
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1378279173 Paige Talbot
    
    Hahaha i noticed that too. I was like “wait… a… minute…’
Cowicide

I can definitely envision a crowd going off on this at a club. They did a great job on this one.
Dwayne Holmberg

I’ve always appreciated the Die Antwoord ethos, but this is the first song that I’ve actually liked. (Also, less freaky than anything I listened to in the 90′s, but the sound is good.)
Jimmy Grahamy

Um. WOW.

1:10 Yolandi says “I FINK you freeky……”
1:15 Ninja says “I THINK you freeky….”
Jimmy Grahamy

edit

1:08 and 1:11
http://twitter.com/ColumbusArea Adolph Marx

one of us, one of us, one of us!
Mister44

1) HER HAIR! That is what I find so damn unsettling. Her damn hair. Its like a Barbie dolls – creeps me out.

2) This has to be the most enjoyable song I’ve heard of theirs – owing much to the early 90′s style techno.
Palomino

Diane Arbus meets Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love. This video brings “freaks” out of the sideshow tent, I love it.

I may be incorrect since his image is a flash at 3:35, he might be an Albino Arfican. Now there’s a story, these Black Albinos are slaughtered in East Africa and Tazania for use by witch doctors. It takes a certain level of evil to tie someone up and harvest a limb at a time too.

Open your eyes, this video is full of messages.

sas dot albinism dot org
Palomino

Please Die Antwoord, PLEASE!
http://www.youtube.com/user/rasmussen418 Steen N. A. Rasmussen

Whatever happened to the gore-smeared ‘angel’ munching on a human heart? Not that this video isn’t cool – it is – but having seen the teaser for the album I was expecting something else entirely.
http://twitter.com/AnatoleGin AnatoleGin

If anyone is interested, the mp3s are not for sale outside of the US, either on Amazon or on iTunes. You must have a US credit card and billing address to buy the songs. Now, I really wanna support Die Antwoord, but this just sucks.
- http://www.youtube.com/user/rasmussen418 Steen N. A. Rasmussen
  
  If you log on to amazon.co.uk or amazon.de you can buy the new album in vinyl, CD & mp3′s no problem. Or am I missing something here?
Bart

I got to see them as they passed through my town on the last album and they are definitely one of the more fun/ interesting live shows I’ve seen in a very long time. It was a very low tech show with just Ninja Yolandi and a DJ on stage, but the music was fun and both of them really had a lot of charisma.
Baldhead

That is well done track. I do love how they refuse to follow the rules on who should be shown in their videos . Who needs models?
http://twitter.com/txhoudini Eric

When Ninja raps close your eyes and tell me it doesn’t sound like J-ROC from Trailer Park Boys.
Jaime Oria

- yet I cannot look away….
http://twitter.com/AfricasaCountry Africa is a Country

Did people catch Waddy’s rap: “Ek’s ‘n lanie, jy’s ‘n gam/want jy lam in die mang/met jou slang in ‘n man” in ‘I Fink You Freeky.’

For those who don’t understand Afrikaans, translated that reads “I am a boss, you’re a child of Ham/’cause you’re locked up in jail/with your snake [penis] inside a man.” Let me break that down.

“Lanie” is olloquial coloured slang for a white boss. As for Gam, it’s the Afrikaans for Ham. That’s the Biblical Noah’s cursed son Ham. In Apartheid’s theology coloureds were deemed children of Ham, i.e. the cursed ones. The rest is self explanatory and recalls the homophobic lyrics on their last song.

As usual am amazed how there’s little debate/comment here and elsewhere on the offensive content of some of their raps, including in “I Fink you Freaky” where that the lyrics above contains offensive racist tropes and the usual dose of homophobia.But I may be expecting too much from listeners/viewers. Many music critics/tastemaker bloggers and DA trolls just repost the videos without engaging with the content. Either the visuals are too overpowering to them or, more importantly, they don’t speak or understand Afrikaans, the other language used in the videos.But then I can already predict the replies. The retort is probably going to be the usual, they don’t mean what they say, this is ironic, they’re artists or the favorite, they’re defanging these racist terms, or it’s the new South Africa and go make your own video, like everyone has the power, access, resources, etc regardless of class, race (especially the people referenced in that racist trope and who Diane Coetzer, writing for Rolling Stone’s South African issue, said DA should be free to “mine” (an unfortunate choice of words if ever there was one in South Africa) of poor coloured people.
m m

Fanks!
A. .

i want to have her freakish punk misshapen south african babies like right now

Die Antwoord: "I Fink U Freeky," co-directed by Roger Ballen (music video)

Read more in Music at Boing Boing

More at Boing Boing