Kameraad Mhambi bets his two front teeth that he was the first blogger on the planet to write about Gazelle (and here) (I was the second to write about Die Antwoord), but I missed the release of his neat little music video of Die verlore seun.

The New Yorker recently commented on Die Antwoord -

Get ready for a fight about the legitimacy of the group and, hopefully, for an influx of more South African pop culture.

Well here is some more. Note the video was shot on Gazelle’s parents farm:

Gazelle with the sights and sounds from home shot on location in Ohrigstad Limpopo province on xander’s family farm with all the lovely people he grew up with…
A dedication of respect to the simple people that are the most beautiful and really make the world go round.
x

Gazelle – Die Verlore Seun from xander ferreira on Vimeo.

I would be remis not to add that there’s been 12 farm attacks in the last few weeks, many in the same province that Gazelle comes from.

Related deployments:

1. Gazelle’s Chick Afrique album launch in Cape Town
2. I’m a Ninja – Die Antwoord

Genugtig. That’s allot.

Peter Bruce writes that:

The Editor of the Sunday Independent, Makhudu Sefara, recounted in his column yesterday the story of a businessman who tapped Malema for a R10 000 loan at a party just before last December. Malema flipped the man his bank card and gave him the PIN and the man drew the money. The slip that followed showed the balance in the account to be R53m!

It is a breathtaking amount but, if the story is true, it would make it much easier to prosecute him. It would be impossible for him to have accumulated anything remotely like that legally. All that is required for the truth to be revealed is cross examination in a court of law.

But no search of the interwebs turn up any corroboration of the story. That’s because the Indie is behind a Paywall. ‘Safe’ from Google’s crawlers.

Well, I had to see this story and here it is… its for real. Only in South Africa. What puzzles me is why South Africa’s journos aren’t all over it?!

Related deployments:

1. Comrade Malema – does he earn more that 1 and a half million bucks?
2. Julius Malema is obsessed with whites

Shifting the goal posts? Sent to me by my friend Murray Hunter, what do you make of it? One comment from me, that Djembe in the shot is not South African. South Africa does not have Djembe’s. And where’s the Vuvuzela’s?

Related deployments:

1. Mhambi’s 2008: Twice bitten by South Africa, once comfortably numb
2. The 74 Lions in South Africa

Die Antwoord played a gig in Joburg this weekend, and by all reports it was a stormer. Katvrou (Cat woman) took some pics (see correction in comments) of the next level skilz and wipe outs.

Did you know that Ninja makes t-shirts and hands them out at the Gigs? You can see one inthis pic. And did you know they design their own outfits, except for the Ninja outfit. That actually belongs to the real Ninja.

Wie is die real Ninja?! I hear you say. I can’t tell you, but if your a reader of Wat Kyk Jy you know already.

The gig was named Geen fokken vrae (No fucking questions) probably in response to articles like this – Answer men – in the New Yorker.

You can check the rest of the gallery here.

Related deployments:

1. Die Antwoord offers some rude solutions
2. I’m a Ninja – Die Antwoord

IOL reports today:

The PAC has come under fire after messages urging the killing of whites were posted on its Facebook site.

The party says it will not remove the offending posts.

The messages, which said an army of about 3 000 people was standing by, ready to kill white people within 24 hours if requested to do so, were still on the site after a Facebook user alerted the administrator to the messages.

…

Independent media analyst and Facebook user Martin Slabbert said he had asked the posters and site administrator Anwar Adams, who is the PAC’s provincial interim chairman, to remove the messages.

“I did a similar thing during the election campaign when a group was started named ‘Let’s assassinate (DA leader) Helen Zille’, and the group was removed,” Slabbert said.

Adams posted a message on the site yesterday thanking posters, but urged them not to stoop to the level of whites in their debate “for we are a better people”.

Well Kameraad Mhambi did a quick search and Mr Adams also has things to say about Israel, Zionists, and Jews. Now I also think that Israel is everything but squeaky clean in the way it engages Palestinians, but this is beyond the pale.

ONE ZIONIST ONE BULLET

LETS REMEMBER GERMANS DID NOT KILL JEWS IT WAS ZIONIST THAT KILLED JEWS AND STOLE THEIR IDENTITY, THE SHORT STOCKY SINNERS FROM THE CASPIAN

UPDATE: The PAC has distanced themselves from the earlier incident. Still Anwar, you don’t seem that naaice.

No related posts.

There’s been a very interesting discussion on Sean’s Africa is a Country blog, on whether Die Antwoord is blackface. Now I was not even familar with the term. Wikipedia defines it as -

Blackface is theatrical makeup used in the United States and around the world, where the practice became popular during the 19th century, it became associated with certain archetypes of American racism such as the “happy-go-lucky darky on the plantation” or the “dandified coon “. Hence Blackface has become associated with racism, particularly in the USA, so that the term may be used in a broader sense to include similarly stereotyped performances even when they do not involve blackface makeup.

A certain Rustum Kozain had written -

Had Ninja been white working class with actual regular, day-to-day interaction with people on the Cape Flats, then the parodic would have no purchase; nor would accusations of appropriation. Or had Ninja, for instance, rapped in a mixture of white working class English and Afrikaans and Cape Flats English and Afrikaans, without developing the visual embellishments, then the social commentary and satire would have stood out in relief. And it would have been an interesting point about fluid identities emphasised. But the visual embellishments – especially the tattoos that tread gingerly between celebration and disavowal of prison-gang style and the gold teeth – do point to appropriation and Waddy Jones has not suddenly discovered his ‘inner coloured’.

To which a certain Andy replied:

“We live in a country where people spent their whole lives under apartheid trying to be re-classified as white if they were coloured, and coloured if they were black. And now, in the post apartheid dispensation, people are actually free to choose whatever racial group they’d like to belong to. These definitions are fluid and shifting. There are no hard edges between black and white. But all the “academic discourse” is up in arms about the “authenticity” of Die Antwoord? When in actual fact they’re missing the point. Kozain calls it appropriation and hints towards a kind of exploitation of coloured culture. Which really just smacks of sour grapes – as if culture is sanctified and hallowed ground not to be investigated and explored by “others”. Jones/Ninja is a South African. What’s to stop him being and communicating anything he wants to? Proudly, South Africa is a melting pot. This is what happens in a melting pot. Shit coalesces. People are influenced and find value in a diverse experiences, cultures and ideas. All this chin stroking really just shows people up for what they are. Resistant to change. Resistant to new ideas and fresh approaches. Afraid… and falling back on old, tired arguments that erase all the rather unique nuances of the creative, like default positions. Blackface! Racist! Inauthentic!”

I have said it before myself. A divided country like South Africa desperately needs these cultural mashups. South Africa is a country in tremendous change identities are more fluid here than most other places.

(And besides, I think to make a straight black white comparison with the USA is not very helpful. South Africa and the USA have very different histories. Is South African coloured a plain shade of black as in the US? Die Antwoord means something similar & different in an South African context than it does in the US.)

PS: Also notable is Any’s descriptions of Ninja’s tjappies (Tatoos):

The tattoo on his right arm is of Evil Boy – derived from Casper the Friendly Ghost with a huge “piel” symbol of the 28s gang. The sex lovers, sodomites and rapists.
The tattoo in the middle of his chest is the symbol of the 27s the murderers and prison enforcers of the number code.
That tattoo on his right breast is of Richie Rich, symbol of the 26s – the money lovers, thieves and scoundrels. So don’t come with that bull that he carefully selected prison tjappies that don’t have direct references. Research!

Related deployments:

1. Die Antwoord offers some rude solutions
2. Die Antwoord pics by Katvrou

Kameraad Mhambi just read the defence by Julius Malema (the ANC youth leagues president) statement that he is not a crook with interest.

A few observations.

Comrade Malema says that he financed his properties with a bond from a bank. For his 3,6 Million Sandown house (lets not take his 1 million Polokwane house into consideration for now) that would mean he needs to pay the bank R35,941 per month.

That means – if Comrade Malema pays all of his salary towards this one house – he earns at least R430,000 per year.

If we do count the Polokwane house the figure he would need to earn would come to at least R45,925 per month or R551,000 per year. Remember, that is if he spends nothing on anything else. This is of course highly unlikely.

Considering new credit legislation and the like, the maximum bond that somebody that earns R45,925 per month could get is R1,379,985. Bearly enough to cover his first house.

Even if Comrade Julius earned a generous R100,000 (R1,200,000 per year) from the ANC he would only be eligible for a R3,004,868 home loan. Not enough for his second home on its own. Could we safely assume them that Comrade Malema gets in excess of R150,000 per month from the ANC? That could let him get a loan for R4,507,302. Not quite enough to cover both his houses, and leaving nothing to live on, but I’m sure his friends helps him out?

President Zuma earns about R2,107,224 per year. Members of parliament gets R714,000 per year.

The chairperson of Anglo American gets a ‘basic’ salary of £900,000 (About R10,000,000) but her total pay and performance related package could be worth almost £4m. A teacher with about 5 year plus expereince could expect to earn about R140,000. The average income per person per year for South Africa is $2,751 or about R21,224.

One other observation.

The comrade claims he instructed his lawyers to ‘process’ his resignation from his companies when he became youth league president in 1998. I find it odd that he does not use the language that he did indeed resign. Is he still a director?

Bring on those life style audits.

Update: Watkykjy posted this bling video, saying:

Ou Julius Spendema in al sy glorie. 99 Problems but the bitch ain’t one. Meer soos 99 problems and being rich ain’t one. Hy fokken tender vir ene …

Comrade Malema would make Die Antwoord proud. Once!

Related deployments:

1. Comrade Malema has R53 million in his bank account?
2. Julius Malema is obsessed with whites

This morning I had a phone call from Adriaan, a good old friend in South Africa. Chris Erasmus a very good friend of ours had apparently taken his own life.

I had a good cry. Chris hitch-hiked with us to Tanzania, Chris gave me lifts down the Ben Schoeman highway on his superbike. He celebrated the first year of post apartheid on the Union building lawns, he was a camera man, he did light shows. Chris was an attractive soul with a lust for life. Only last year he criss-crossed Africa on a bike, from Pretoria to Spain.

Neil, Chris, me, Adriaan at the Union buildings. (Pic, Jan Bezuidenhout)

We are not sure why this happened now. A week before, Deon Haumann, a VJ and friend he had been working with, died after a gruesome motor accident.

On lake Malawi, with Neil, me & Chris.

Chris VJing for NUL, who dedicated this song, Über-Rampokker – to him.

1. Chris Louws death and what it may mean

An interview with Die Antwoord. They explain their take on Zef. They want to do a feature with Neil Blomkamp of District 9 fame. They saw Wikus van der Merwe in the Gardens Shopping Center. And South Africa is pretty damn funky.

PS: According to Watkykjy Neil Blomkamp has been in touch with Yolandi already, so who knows.

Related deployments:

1. Die Antwoord offers some rude solutions
2. I’m a Ninja – Die Antwoord

Update: 1-5 Feb stats for Die Antwoord site:

3 mil hits
106k visits
80k unique users

In my other life, I run a company that helps people and organisations get in touch with their crowd. Ie Digital marketing, social media etc. Die Antwoord’s rise is a classic case study in how new media can help propel talented band to the top.

Below, you can get an Idea of the traffic I’ve had since Die Antwoord blew up.

From that article -

History of Die Antwoord on the Interwebs

April 2009 – Die Antwoord gets a Buitekammertjie on the Watkykjy site featuring 4 free tracks to download.

May – December – A number of South African blogs write about Die Antwoord, more free tracks appear on Watkykjy.

October 5 – Vice magazine writes about Die Antwoord saying that No band from South Africa ever makes it

November – the notorious video in the Taxi appears on Vimeo.

December – Zef side Video appears on Watkykjy and YouTube

January – 13 th, 14th Enter the Ninja appears on Watkykjy and YouTube, and new Website launches with entire album free to stream

January 29ths feature on the Vivalavinyl message board and theB9.com message board. Possibly also the 4schan message board.

January 31st – discussion begins on the Hipopinion message board
.
Feb 1st – The Antwoord reaches tipping point. Web searches increase dramatically, Twitter as well. 15:00 The UK Guardian music blog writes about Die Antwoord. Boing Boing writes a first article on Die Antwoord at 10pm US Eastern time.

Feb 3 – Griffin, who runs Watkykjy reports that he already had 120 GB of data served by their server for the Die Antwoord website.

Read more here.

Related deployments:

1. Die Antwoord offers some rude solutions
2. America discovers Die Antwoord