Ninja From Die Antwoord: Like Dalí in the Movies

Oh, Watkin Tudor Jones. I never know whether to laugh or cry.

A week ago, I saw Kongos play a show to a crowd that poured off the sidewalk outside Greenside’s Openroom Studios. Mostly, there were older press monkeys playing catch-up over beer, and teenagers, impressed by their own ability to smoke cigarettes in public places. When Kongos’ front man belted out another shallow response to 5FM’s Catherine Grenfell about how happy they were to have come from the US to play their music in South Africa, and to open ‘Tokolosh Records’ here, the crowd responded with a cheer.

“The nice man from the US loves us,” the crowd must’ve thought. “He really loves us!”

I woke up today to reactions on Twitter to a piece by Eve Fairbanks, published online at The New York Times yesterday, regarding her New Years’ Eve spent with Die Antwoord. I doubt that there is a single South African who is connected to the internet and not at least vaguely aware of the ‘zef’ rap crew that blew the fuck up in 2010 with a video that went viral and an album that had radio censors frustratedly weeping in front of their monitors. Ninja, Yo-Landi and DJ Hi-Tek hit big in the US, playing Coachella and signing a deal with Interscope, the same label they ditched so they could release their new album “Tension” with all the filthy expressiveness they’d intended.

South Africans received the group amicably. Die Antwoord seemed to be laughing and for a while we were laughing with them. Ninja, an established chameleon of the local rap scene who’d reinvented himself a few times before, was celebrated as a performer. Sentiment spun on its heel when the group really started to make it. The usual talk of overexposure and commercialization erupted, and I’ll bet a fair portion of the trolling that went on under the Youtube video of their performance on Jimmy Kimmel was taken care of by the reliable seers from the News24 comments section.

We could tolerate endless seasons of Kardashian spin-offs from the US, but not this.

There’s a fair bit of gagging and irritation at the NY Times piece today. Eve Fairbanks writes about South African race relations, history and culture from a distinctly distant anthropological perspective. That can’t be helped. That’s the nature of a foreigner standing on the shore, thinking they’d found their Great Orient when really it was clearly somewhere in the opposite direction. Ninja’s comments received a little more ire.

In the piece, the leader of the zef rappers argues that his group’s success is “like when someone famous works out their thing, like Michelangelo or Salvador Dalí”. He’s cited two massively famous artists who really expressed themselves through their work and left an immense impact on the art world that can’t help but resonate today. “And then everyone wants to be like them for centuries.” There’s the hint of ego in there. How dare this charlatan private school boy playing dress-up compare himself to Michelangelo? To Dalí!?

Except he’s right.

Some South Africans frown upon Die Antwoord; a bit of performance art exported to the globe that might say something uncomfortable about us or give the world the wrong impression. They broke away from Interscope? No! Yo-Landi turned down David Fincher’s offer for the lead in “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”? She’s crazy! They could’ve helped legitimize South Africa in the eyes of a few scoffing fans here. They could’ve pulled back the curtain and shown everyone that they’re just like everyone else. Then maybe the people in the USA would cheer and clap for us when Ninja stood in front of them and said he came from SA, the way we cheer at Kongos when they tell us they’re here to polish us up and make us feel cool for a while. The South African fan’s identity is so closely linked to the adoration of the artist that we revel in these generic non-sentiments from a man when it’s his art we should be celebrating.

The point is not whether or not Die Antwoord will have the longevity or impact of the great artists. The point is that like Dalí before him, Watkin Tudor Jones is willing to express what he’s doing in a way that might piss off a lot of people, but won’t stop him from doing it. There’s a certain disingenuity to Ninja that people can’t help but write about. As Fairbanks points out, he doesn’t drink alcohol. Even in his Playboy shorts and lame tats he offers her tea. The party he invited her to for New Years was not at all what it was billed as. Is this because he’s a moron? Every move he’s made so far indicates the opposite. Ninja is a character – the facade of a performer. Like a Facebook profile. Like Dalí’s moustache. And as he tells Fairbanks in the NY Times, “I feel sorry for people who need to us ask us: Is it real?”

The performer behind this all recognizes that reality and identity is fluid. Let Waddy have his fun. Nothing need be real to be true or true to be real.