Been looking into this South African music scene that I think is probably go to take over the indie dance world here in 2010. Die Antwoord just played Cinespace (video below) for a secret show and the hype around them is crazy! But there is some other dope music coming out on this same tip. Peep out Jack Parrow and I found this on a board on the interweb (see SA slang, already using it) it sums up this Zef thing pretty well.
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.
And Afrochic? POC and Brasse were seminal Flats hip-hop crews in the 80s and 90s and since you’re obviously not from Lentegeur or Bonteheuwel and can’t relate to them, why slate them?
Peep out some vids. Shit is good and like in any scene there is beef. The boards are on fire about Die Antwoord’s front man not being as street as he portrays.
…”ninja” is being held in such high regard.. he was performing with a crew of Mc’s with ten times the ability that has… namely, Isaac mutant(best and most underated MC of our time), Skallywag and Knoffel, i would go as far as to say he rode on the talent they possessed to gain his so called “street cred”, not only is the a vile depiction of how one dimentional and racist the music industry is, but Ninja (aka waddy, aka every name he could think of) has the indecency to tatoo himself in the style of a Poolsmor prisoner… this article doesnt tell of how, when he goes to places like mitchells plein he needs to use concealer to cover his “hardcore tats” , cos if he didn’t the real gangster would probably beat him up and rape him. he’s not doing anything new either… he is doing what elvis did and what eminem did, except he has no respect for his roots. i hope he gets caught in the streets, then we can see how much of a ninja he really is! …
he shoulda stuck to being max normal!
I am sure there is mad music going on and these are just some of the vids I found. Its all new to me so please let me know if I missing out on the new shit.
Bonus video
