kameraad mhambi

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.

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.

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
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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.

The guy that started the popular Afrikaans music explosion of the last 20 years or so name was James Phillips.

James was a Ingelsman – an English white South African. But not a Soutpiel – the derogatory word for English whites that were obsessed with thier mother country. (Literally salt penis. Someone with one foot in England, the other in South Africa and the male member dangling in the Atlantic.)

He had grown up on the East Rand. The industrial side of Johannesburg’s white community was mostly Afrikaans, because Afrikaners tended to form the white working class.

David Goldblatt
Afternoon tea being served to two men repairing a car on a pavement in Fairview, Johannesburg, Transvaal (Gauteng), 1965.

To be sure there was actually one artist before Phillips that launched popular Afrikaans music, namely Koos du Plessis. He too came from the East Rand and a town called Springs (Originally named Fonteine but renamed Springs by Imperial English South Africa.) But while du Plessis’s music was beautiful, it was profoundly melancholic. Phillips put the pop and the fun into Afrikaans.

But Phillips did not intend to. He was a music student at Wits, and English language University and quite unconcerned with politics. Most of the music he wrote before and after his sojourn in Afrikaans was in English. Wie is Bernoldus Niemand -his most famous album was an university project. But it sparked a revolution in Afrikaans music and the so called Voelvry beweging. Phillips was bemused by the fame bestowed upon him by the Afrikaans community. English white South Africa did not make much notice of that album at first, but it was later taken up by the End Conscription Campaign as a political tool to end white conscription to the apartheid army. To many Afrikaans speakers he is still affectionately known as Bernoldus Niemand.

It is also no small coincidence that District 9′s Neil Blomkamp and Sharlto Copley come form the East Rand. (Word has it that Blomkamp has contacted Yolandi to tell them how much he likes Die Antwoord.) Blomkamp and Copley attended English schools but were surrounded by Afrikaans culture.

The vehicle for their narrative was Wikus van der Merwe (also featured in some of Die Antwoord song – Super Evil ) described best by Andries du Toit:

The whole point of Wikus, of course, is that he is such a prat. He is thick as a plank. He is awful. He is as unlike a Bruce Willis or a Samuel Jackson as it is possible to be – and this is at least partly because he is Afrikaans. He is not just Afrikaans, he is a rockspider. He is a doos, a chop, a moegoe. He mangles English with hilarious ineptness. He is cringe-makingly uncool: cheesily in love with his ‘angel’ wife, dorkily clumsy in front of the camera, cravenly obedient to authority, crudely bullying to the aliens that he deals with, and horrifyingly inept in his dealings with his Black underlings, whom he patronizes with cheery ignorance. At the same time, in his earnestness, in his desire to be liked, in his bright-eyed and bushy-tailed eagerness to make a success of this impossible, chaotic, disaster of a job, one cannot but like him.

Like Phillips, Blomkamp and Copely expressing themselves through Afrikaans culture has been the recipe of their success. How so?

Because of its authenticity. Because of Afrikaans culture’s groundedness in South Africa, and because of Afrikaners manic support for all things South Africa. Middle and upper class English South Africa aspired for generations to all things England. Their suburbs and towns were called after places in the UK. The books they read were from authors in the UK. The football teams they supported were Man U long before the current global craze for that. As Po, a well known South African blogger noted recently on my blog:

I don’t want to play the “poor little white girl” card, but I have felt like an alien in SA for many years. My European ancestry (including 1820 English settlers) marks me out as European rather than African for ever more. Also I come across so much bitterness towards colonialism in SA, and fair enough! But I feel like a symbol for that colonialism. Also us English speaking Saffas have absolutely no culture of our own, we are just a hybrid bunch of people who feel a bit like intruders or guests in the place they were born in.

Even today – even if unfashionable amongst the Rondebosch and Sandton set – the best selling popular musicians in South Africa are the likes of Steve Hofmyer and the highest grossing local movies Poena is Koning. Afrikaans culture might be unsophisticated, but it is much more substantial and has a much larger legacy to call on. It also has a fan base. (As an aside the vast majority of local novels sold is Afrikaans as well).

A little background. When in the 1800’s some Afrikaner politicians tried to call the English arrivals Afrikaners it was roundly rejected. They were proud to be called British. Being British was seen as more advanced and not as backward as being from Africa. Much later English white South Africa were up in arms when the Nationalists made the country a republic.

As the editor of Business day recently wrote:

“THE 1970s were a heady time to be a white English-speaking liberal in SA. As a post- Mandela black leadership began to define itself in the form of Steve Biko and other young activists, many white liberals began to see a relevant place for themselves in South African politics — they would be aiders and abetters of the revolution against apartheid.

The truth be told, white liberal English speakers still smarted from the break with Britain and never made much distinction then between apartheid and its creators — nationalist Afrikaners.”

Now Waddy Jones aka Ninja seems to have done what James Phillips have. He has embraced Afrikaans culture which he knows intimately. I don’t know this for a fact yet, but my bet is that Jones comes from either the East Rand or a place like Vereeniging. A white working class Afrikaans area. (Ok apparently not says Grif van Watkykjy, although I’m not sure where from yet. Speculation is that it’s Randburg – middleclass Afrikanerdom). Why do I think I’m right? Well, most English speaking South Africans can’t speak Afrikaans unless they absolutely have to. Yolandi is of course Afrikaans herself.

Die Antwoord and the Wedding DJ’s at the Oppikoppi (On the hill) festival, a festival that grew out of the Voelvry movement

Die Antwoord was written about in Beeld, Die Burger (the two biggest Afrikaans daileys), but up to tonight none of the English language South African press have. Afrikaans is their blind spot. No matter – the UK Guardian, Boing Boing, and World Wide – Die Antwoord is there now.

Jones’ previous projects have been as good in many ways as his output as Die Antwoord. But it was as Die Antwoord that they were nurtured and backed by Wat Kyk Jy, the legendary Zef Afrikaans website and a loyal army of supporters. It was in this community where he found people like The Wedding Dj’s, with their roots themselves in the East Rand and Vereeniging, who organise parties in Cape Town, (You can see them in the back of the Taxi when Yolandi wiggles her naked arse).

Shortly after the Voelvry movement, but quite independently of it, a hip hop movement started in the coloured Afrikaans speaking communities of the Cape flats. Bands like Prophets of the City and Brasse van die Kaap. (A good place to explore coloured SA is at Kakduidelik, Watkykjy’s more respectable cousin once removed.)

The brilliance of Jones, who like the Wedding DJ’s moved down to the Cape, was to incorporate this Hip Hop scene into their act as well. Much of their inspiration is the Gangster Rappers associated to the Numbers gang. See their track Wie Maak Die Jol Vol – the best one in my opinion – featuring Gangster rappers Issac Mutant, Knoffel, Jaak Parl & Scally Wag. And see this documentary on the Numbers gang and you’ll know where some of the inspiration for Ninja’s tatoos come from.

UPDATE: Darn, I see that Sky or whoever it was removed the video. What a pity. Mr. Murdoch – fok jou ook. It was really fascinating

I found a replacement, not nearly as good quality – but here it is. Even better quality here. Watch all the parts if you can.

Also reflecting on South African language politics, check out Die Antwoord’s My best friend track. (Where the friend ‘does not speak that language’.)

Afrikaans is once again in a struggle for survival.

Also see this video where Jones, as Max Normal intimates about how he is going to change his style and his accent, after an invite to become famous by Duppie, but even so much of Die Antwoord is already there.

Kameraad Mhambi sees there is some confusion online over what the term Zef means. Die Antwoord does Zef Afrikaans Rap Rave. What is Zef?

Well its similar to Chav. Sofeetjie explained it best in a comment on the Guardian website.

The question to Die Antwoord, I believe, is an Afrikaans website called Wat Kyk Jy? (“What are you looking at, mate?”, that ominous last sentence you’ll hear in a pub before waking up on the ground).

The site pays homage to Afrikaans slang and zef ? an Afrikaans term that roughly translates to what we in South Africa also refer to as “common”: clapped-out Ford Cortinas with fur on the dashboard, tight mom jeans pulled up too high, “synth-heavy ringtone rave”, mullets. Zef isn’t a music style, and it’s not limited to any one culture or location, obviously, but www.watkykjy.co.za celebrates it particularly well in Afrikaans (the site was born, incidentally, in Pretoria, 1000km north of CT).

So yes, Cape Town is also full of zef, and what Ninja, Yo-lande and their crew are tapping into brilliantly is zef in the coloured community (the official SA term for mixed-race people) of the gangster-ridden Cape Flats, which would include rap in the street venac mix of English and Afrikaans.

The Flats or SA may not have heard anything like Die Antwoord’s zef-rap-rave before, but having been to a few city centre concerts where the trendy stand around trying to make sense of the new incarnation of Wadkin Tudor Jones, I?ve often seen bergies (coloured homeless people) dancing to it and laughing and totally getting it. And the crew’s gigs in the parking lots of Mitchell?s Plain go down a riot. So yes, they’re authentic. Is Marshall Mathers, if you want to draw a parallel, any less authentic when he’s in character as Slim Shady?

Jack Parow, by the way, does the zef thing, equally brilliantly, from Cape Town’s Afrikaans middle-class suburbs, far, far removed from the slums of the Flats.

Here is Jack Parrow:

The Watkykjy websaait has a Zef slang dictionary over here.

So with any luck, thanks to Die Antwoord, Afrikaans will contribute Zef to the global vernacular, alongside those great words – apartheid, aardvark, trek (as in Star trek) and wildebeest.

Genugtig, my traffic is going through the roof.

Just this week I tweeted that my traffic is going to be far over 5000 visits for the month. I was clipping away at 200 visits per day, but that was before the interweb got the hots for Die Antwoord.

Just look! I’ve got Wordpress Super Cache installed, so my server should be ok. Also just reinstalled Tweetmeme.

Do yourself a favour and do a Twitter search – every second minute there is a Die Antwoord Tweet.

Recently Vice magazine interviewed Die Antwoord:

You reckon zef rap-rave in Afrikaans has any potential beyond, say Sunnyside or Parow?
Ninja: Our first album we decided to dig into our own personal flavour and just keep it real you know, and represent where we’re coming from and how we speak. The next album we’re working on is called Ten$ion, and on this album we want to rap more like tour guides of South Africa, like maintain our SA style and flavour but still bring it for people in the overseas to understand… with like 95% English and then just a bit of Afrikaans
Yo-Landi: Afrikaans for all the swearing bits.
Ninja: To sum it all up, in this place, South Africa, you get a lot of different things: whites, coloureds, English, Afrikaans, Xhosa, Zulu, watookal—I’m like all these different things, all these different people, fucked into one person.

That may be true sir, but nobody from South Africa ever really makes it overseas. You do realise that?
Ninja: Ja, check it, but it’s like the long distance runners from Ethiopia—they always come to the Olympics and fuck everyone up heavy! Now why is that possible my blaar? It’s ‘cos in Ethiopia the air is fucking thin. There’s like fuck-all air there basically, so when they come to the levels of the Olympics they’ve got like super oxygenated lungs and fuck everyone up ten-nil. So that’s basically how I’m feeling about this; South Africa’s the fucking shit. All my inspiration, all my funk, all my flavour is from here but also we’re training at minimum oxygen levels, so I’m basically like a Ethiopian runner just waiting for the fucking Olympics. Give me the mic, give me the baton and we’ll see whose gonna take these motherfuckers out. I’m feeling that shit, I’ve got fucking goosebumps my bru.
Yo-Landi: Mmm, these pickled onions are very nice
Ninja: Ja these onions are pumping.

And check here, even The UK Guardian has featured them now (below). Note while Die Beeld and Die Burger has featured them in SA none of the English language papers have. That just will tell you all you need to know about South African cultural politics.

They’ve also been featured on the 4chan and hipinion music message boards, and they said tonight:

seems we’re right at the tipping point of pure viral meme explosion; these guys are about to blow

Artic Monkeys Eat your Heart out.

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• Scene and heard: Zef (guardian.co.uk)

TycoBrahe posted this on January 30th, 2010 @ 11:04:05 am

Next big thing in the US.

Kameraad Mhambi noticed quite a traffic spike on the site today. And after further inspection, it would seem that some Americans on the Vanilla Vinyl Board have discovered Die Antwoord.

Some more comments on Die Antwoord. Note, they don’t quite know what to make of it!

This shit creeps me out and makes me feel uneasy and unsettled.

i am in awe

ICP meets tatu meets the streets

What happens when Eminem meets with Aqua and Aphex Twin?

the people in this video look really weird

Is that Afrikaans?

Answering my own question with google: Yes.

Kinda way into the fact that my first encounter with a new language is from a rave-rap song or whatever the hell this is.

Anyone here speak Dutch? Are you able to make out some of the words?

PS: You can now follow Die Antwoord on Twitter.