Coming from Cape Town, South Africa, the hip-hop duo Die Antwoord struck Internet viral gold with their video hit "Enter the Ninja," but they're really conceptual artists Watkin Tudor Jones and Yo-Landi ViSSer presenting their "inner zef." Before assuming the roles of Ninja and Yo-Landi ViSSer for Die Antwoord, the two were involved with satirical projects like MaxNormal.TV -- who wore three-piece business suits and delivered motivational hip-hop -- and the Constructus Corporation: a hip-hop fantasy group based around a comic book called the Ziggurat. The idea for a more vulgar rave-rap group began in 2008, but it wasn’t until a year later that Die Antwoord -- which is Afrikaans for "The Answer" -- began playing live. Their stage show was outrageous with Yo-Landi baiting and flipping off the audience, while Ninja rapped and danced, wearing only his trademark Dark Side of the Moon boxer shorts. That same year they recorded their debut album, SOS, and introduced "Zef," which fused hip-hop, electro, and rave music. A year later, the videos they created for the tracks "Zef Side" and "Enter the Ninja" became viral hits. The latter featured Leon Botha, an experimental South African artist and one of the world’s oldest survivors of the premature aging disease progeria, who appeared as the group’s DJ. "Enter the Ninja" cracked the British Top 40, and major-label Interscope soon signed the group and released their 5 EP in July of 2010. That October, the label released a revised SOS with a world tour following. The group left Interscope the next year when the two parties couldn't come to terms on their next album's lead single. Left to their own devices, Die Antwoord chose "Fok Julle Naaiers" as the lead single to TenSion, their sophomore album released by their own Zef Recordz and distributed by the Diplo-associated imprint Downtown.
David Jeffries
AllMusic.com
