Listening to their break-out album with this in mind, track 11, Fish Paste, seems to be a direct comment on the hipster crowd and Ninja's contemporaries and ex-band mates pre-Ninja. Like a traditional "I'm so much better than you" rapper diss off, and surely meant as tongue in cheek, Ninja and Yolandi insult SA DJs Spoek Mathambo, Marcus Wormstorm and trendy Cape Town live music hang out The Assembly. "Spoek Mathambo is a spank rock lookalike rapalike siff little parasite gag, fuck every one of your whack tracks, Marcus Wormstorm is short and fat." "Fuck this poes in the skinny jeans, Yo maar jy's trendy, Soos the vokken kak jol by Assembly."
Offering an extreme alternative to the floppy wrist, metro sexual, wayfarer, skinny-jean-wearing, soft-spoken emo generation, Die Antwoord is a blast of fresh diesel fumes from a souped up, window-tinted Citi Golf. And people are inhaling deeply.
I appreciate the album more and more after each listen. As a party album it can't be beaten, humourous and dirty dirty dirty lyrics, sick beats and catchy as hell hooks that beg you to skud jou bude, each song is immediately recognisable as Die Antwoord, but, at the same time, unique from each other. I prefer when Ninja raps (mostly) without the Afrikaner accent so stand-out tracks for me include She Makes Me A Killer and In Your Face. Liewe Maatjies offers a respite from all the high-energy numbers and is very reminiscent of an early Max Normal track. Beat Boy will get you blushing with its extremely X-rated and original lyrics while the Francois van Coke colab Doos Dronk is wonderfully stomp inducing.
Who knows how long zef will last till it saturates the mainstream and goes the way of "the indie"? For now the world and zef have just started flirting, but I foresee some serious ass raping in the future.
