Die Antwoord

Die Antwoord (Afrikaans: "The Answer") is a hip-hop group from Cape Town, South Africa consisting of three members Ninja, Yo-Landi Vi$$er and DJ Hi-Tek. The band self-identifies as a mélange of several diverse cultures.

The band toured Europe starting in April 2010 and the USA and Canada later that same year.

Die Antwoord lead vocalist Ninja was born Watkin Tudor Jones and was a part of the South African hip-hop scene for many years, fronting such acts as The Original Evergreen, MaxNormal.TV and The Constructus Corporation. He is known for adopting different stage personas. In the case of Die Antwoord his persona is Ninja: a vulgar and aggressive character who is very different from his previous incarnations. When asked whether Ninja was a character he said, "Ninja is, how can I say, like Superman is to Clark Kent. The only difference is, I don't take off this fokken Superman suit."

Die Antwoord was later created as a group in 2008, consisting of performers Ninja, Yo-Landi Viser (Yolandi Visser), and DJ Hi-Tek. Their debut album sOs was made available as a free download on their official website. sOs features Cape Flats rappers Garlic Brown (aka Knoffel Bruin), Scallywag and Isaac Mutant, and Jack Parow and Jaak Paarl (aka Jaak). In 2009 South African cinematographer Rob Malpage (along with co-director Ninja) shot the video for their single "Enter the Ninja." The video became popular on the internet nine months later, delivering millions of hits to the official Die Antwoord website. Their original South African hosting provider, Hetzner, disabled their hosting account following massive bandwidth overage caused by the traffic following the site launch. The group were forced to move their hosting to a US-based hosting provider to handle the traffic. The "Enter The Ninja" video also features Leon Botha, a prominent Cape Town artist who is one of the world's oldest survivors of progeria.

Die Antwoord performs music which incorporates many Zef elements and references. Zef is a South African slang term that describes a unique South African style which is modern and trashy and also includes out-of-date, discarded cultural and style elements. Both Ninja and Yolandi have offered definitions of zef. Yolandi was quoted as saying, "It's associated with people who soup their cars up and rock gold and shit. Zef is, you're poor but you're fancy. You're poor but you're sexy, you've got style." Their lyrics are performed in both Afrikaans and English.

In an interview with Exclaim! magazine, the group revealed they have a five album plan. According to Ninja, "We'll be dropping films between each of the albums, feature films... We have one we're working on for next year called The Answer. It's like the story of how Die Antwoord started. But that's like, our power, and where our energy is at right now" In another interview with Mother Jones magazine, the group mentioned that they already had most of the musical hooks written for a second album, tentatively titled Tension.