MUSIC
B Y A L E X V. C I P O L L E
FOK INTERESSANT!
In which the author interviews her mum about
South African shock crew Die Antwoord,
who return to Cuthbert July 14
DIE ANTWOORD PLAYING
THE CUTHBERT IN 2015
P H O TO B Y TO D D C O O P E R
L
ast week I called up my 69-year-old white mum
in Minnesota with a special request: Listen to Die
Antwoord’s new mixtape Suck On This and let me
interview you about it.
Die Antwoord would probably top the list of mu-
sic you shouldn’t listen to with your mother, or vice versa,
but, like a boss, my mum accepted the challenge.
First, let’s be clear here: Mum is no music critic, or mu-
sician, but she did grow up in South Africa from ages 4 to
25, and Die Antwoord is one of South Africa’s biggest cul-
tural exports, ever (don’t even think about it Nelson Man-
dela, Charlize Theron, Trevor Noah, Elon Musk).
Made up of the indefinable Afrikaans rapping duo con-
sisting of Ninja and ¥o-landi Vi$$er (and, hidden in the
background, DJ Hi-Tek), Die Antwoord has been described
as “shock rap-rave,” “electro-rap” and “savage rap.”
I think they’re aliens — art-house aliens spitting some
of the weirdest, most graphic and innovative rhymes of
the new millennium, while crafting an intoxicating image,
equal parts beautiful and downright icky, with a healthy
dose of satire.
They introduced the outside world to zef, a South Af-
rican counterculture whose American cultural equivalent
would be somewhere at the crossroads of trailer trash, punk
rock, kitsch and grindhouse schlock (she sports a peroxide
mullet and fake nails for days; his go-to is boxer shorts,
a chest-full of tattoos and a grill — they both frequently
wear terrifying inky black contact lenses).
Die Antwoord was last in Eugene in May 2014. I’ve
never walked away from a show in this town with more
bruises or more of a contact high. It was well worth it.
They return to the Cuthbert July 14, or Bastille Day, the
same day a crowd stormed the Bastille prison in Paris and
freed the inmates — the date seems apt somehow.
OK, back to Mum, who grew up around Cape Town,
South Africa’s second largest city, where Die Antwoord
formed in 2008.
What was your first reaction, Mum?
“It’s very flat. No one I know speaks Afrikaans or Eng-
lish that way,” she says, comparing their accent to Ameri-
can “hillbillies.”
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July 7, 2016 • eugeneweekly.com
“Asides from that, even though it’s not my kind of
music, I think they’ve done something amazing — even
though everything is ‘fuck this’ or ‘fuck that.’”
My mum points out that two of the songs are old lul-
labies she knew as a kid. “Siembaba,” which Vi$$er sings
in her evil pixie purr, means “We Catch Him” in Xhosa,
the language of an ethnic group of the same name in South
Africa and one of the country’s 11 official languages; Afri-
kaans and English (more like British English than Ameri-
can) are two others.
It’s about killing a snake, my mom explains. “It’s kind
of gross when you follow it word by word.”
The other is “Jan Pierewiet,” which she instantly starts
singing from memory over the phone.
I had also asked my mum while listening to Suck On
This to take notes on references or Afrikaans terms that
would fly over the heads of American fans.
“In number four: ‘Where’s My Fukn Cup Cake,’” my
mum points out matter-of-factly. “Yo-Landi says ‘poes,’
which is like ‘pussy.’”
Then she explains the meaning of the song title for track
10, “Fok Julle Naaiers.”
“People who listen to this probably have no idea it
means ‘Fuck You Fuckers.’”
Oh Mum, I think they probably have some idea. This is the
band with song titles like “Gucci Coochie,” “Happy Go Sucky
Fucky” and “Girl I Want 2 Eat U.” But yes, good to know.
Next example — my mum, obviously tickled by this
assignment, has a lot of examples — is for track 13, an
“Enter Da Ninja” remix.
If you’ve been reading this to your kids, you weirdos,
now would be the time to send them to bed.
“There is a couple lines in Afrikaans.” She translates
the lyrics roughly: “Goat is my little friend and goat likes
my hole.”
OK. Wow. The goat neighing in the background on that
track makes a lot of sense now. Yikes.
“Honestly, not only is this all about having sex with
everybody in every possible orifice, but also with goats,”
mum says of the mixtape. “Oh my god, indeed. I don’t
even want to tell anyone I listened to this.”
Die Antwoord is all about artful yet explicit and boor-
ish shock value — traits South Africa was not necessar-
ily known for before the group burst onto the international
stage in 2010. Even though my mum left South Africa in
1972, in the thick of white supremacist Apartheid, I won-
dered if she had any ideas about what kind of proto-culture
gave birth to these wacko geniuses.
“If this group had existed in South Africa then, it would
have been banned,” she says. “We weren’t allowed to read
Black Beauty because it had the word ‘black’ in it.”
She continues: “There’s not much about this couple’s
background, but it was so repressed in South Africa. On
a Sunday, you weren’t allowed to read anything but the
Bible. Maybe this was a generation that rebelled against
their very Calvinist upbringing.”
South Africa, in fact, was the last country on the conti-
nent to get TV in 1976 — about three decades after the U.S.
“It wasn’t allowed,” she recalls. “It would corrupt people,”
or that’s the spin the Apartheid government gave, she says.
Mum also says she picks up on a lot of class anger in
Die Antwoord’s music.
“I’m no expert, but my thoughts when I was listening
were, oh my god, this is another symptom of the anger
that’s all around — ISIS, voters in the U.K., Trump sup-
porters,” she says.
She adds: “A lot of working classes have never gone
up the economic rungs,” and resentment is growing world-
wide. Groups like Die Antwoord speak to this, “because
you feel things so strongly and then it finally bursts out.”
So would Mum attend a Die Antwoord show if given
a ticket?
“I think now I would, yes,” she says. “I don’t know if
I could last the whole show.” She says that listening to the
mixtape was a “learning experience.”
And if she had to write a one-line review of Suck On This?
“I would say: ‘Fok interessant!,’ which means ‘Fucking
interesting!’” she laughs.
Thanks, Mum.
Die Antwoord returns 7 pm Thursday, July 14, at Cuthbert Amphitheatre;
$37.50 adv., $43 door. And believe it or not, the show is open to all ages. To
listen to the Suck On This mixtape for free, find it on SoundCloud.com.