WATCH: Die Antwoord in storm over k-word, n-bombs, calling Whitney Houston ‘crack whore bitch’
The 'zef' SA hip-hop duo, one of which was recently accused of sexually abusing an Australian rapper, now faces fresh racism accusations.
File Picture: Die Antwoord. AFP PHOTO / ALEXANDER JOE
A video currently circulating on the internet is casting massive hip-hop group Die Antwoord in an unflattering light, earning them fresh accusations of racism (an allegation they have faced before, for incidents including their use of blackface in the 2012 video for their song Fatty Boom Boom).
The video is a compilation of footage filmed by Ben Crossman, an artist who used to work with the duo but has since fallen out with them, for reasons including that they allegedly refused to give him any credit for his work.
The footage includes the hip hop act’s Ninja and Yolandi Visser using the racial slur ‘n****r’ multiple times and encouraging small children to pose with replica guns.
There is also a clip of Yolandi calling late R&B singer Whitney Houston a “crack whore bitch” on the night of her death, and calling a member of the audience a “swart naai” (“black f**k”) while onstage.
At one point, Ninja boasts after a show about his excitement at saying the word ‘n****r’ live for the first time.
“It felt so right,” he said.
In another clip, Yolandi points at a black man and says “only a n****r can wear a cap like that”.
Ninja, real name Watkin Tudor Jones, has defended his use of the word ‘n****r’ before, following the release of the video for their song F*k Julle Naaiers, which included Ninja casually using the n-word. The video also earned them accusations of homophobia due to the use of the word ‘faggot’.
Ninja issued a video statement he titled Faggot, defending DJ Hi-Tek’s use of the word because he himself is gay, also claiming that South Africans supposedly call each other the word as a term of endearment.
READ MORE: More controversy for Die Antwoord
He defended his use of ‘n****r’, meanwhile, by saying it supposedly doesn’t have the same power in SA as in the US.
“In South Africa people aren’t so pumped up about these words. Like for instance in South Africa a white guy will say to a black guy, ‘What’s up my nigga”‘, and the black guy will be like, ‘Hey, what’s up my nigga.’ That’s why South Africa is a rainbow nation, because you have people of different colours and different sexual styles all coming together as one.”
However, US YouTuber Edwin Costa, who has made several videos about Die Antwoord, including ones on sexual abuse allegations against Ninja that first emerged in a diss track by Australian rapper Zheani, points out that Die Antwoord has used a word a white South African definitely could not get away with calling a black South African.
Ninja refers to himself in a track from their album Tension called Never Le Nkemise 1 as “die wit k****r” (the white k****r).
The hip hop duo, who rap partially in Afrikaans (Yolandi, real name Andri du Toit, is Afrikaans herself) is currently in the process of receiving negative media attention over an incident involving Zheani.
READ MORE: Die Antwoord tell Eminem ‘jou me se p**s’
This can be read about in more detail here, and will also be explored more in a separate article following an interview with Zheani.
The hip-hop duo’s meteoric rise to global fame now seems threatened by a growing string of allegations, some of which stem from former friends, associates or members of the pair’s inner circle who have fallen out with them.
This includes revelations on the blog WatKykJy, which ironically played a huge part in the rise of the duo, and Die Antwoord even named a song after it. The blog also introduced Die Antwoord to the word ‘zef’, referring to a certain kitsch South African style, which Die Antwoord has since made its own.
The blog is currently the source of several allegations against the pair. It also hosts a video that appears to show Die Antwoord falsely accusing Andy Butler of the band Hercules and Love Affair of sexually assaulting Yolandi.
Multiple attempts to contact Die Antwoord through their management had been ignored at the time of publication.
According to the artist whose footage makes up the video clip, this isn’t surprising.
“I have their numbers and stuff but they’re not going to speak to you,” he said.
“Let me put it this way,” he continued. “They wouldn’t talk to Vice Magazine or Rolling Stone or TMZ or any of the big YouTubers covering this”.
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