Die Antwoord’s US Debut At Coachella With Xeni – Boing Boing – Interview

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Die ANtwoord’s Ninja and Yo-Landi speak with Xeni Jardin at Coachella Oasis just after their first ever US performance at Coachella.

[Xeni Jardin]
This is Xeni Jardin from Boing Boing from Los Angeles Times and Brand X and we are hear at the Coachella Oasis which used to be Merv Griffin’s House, its a big beautiful sprawling Estate in the desert and I’m here with two very, very special guests, Ninja and Yo-Landi of Die ANtwoord. Welcome guys!

[Ninja]
Hi, Hi,

[Xeni Jardin]
Hey, Yo-Landi

[Yo-Landi]
Ha

[Xeni Jardin]
You guys played an amazing set last night here at Coachella – this was actually your first time ever playing in the United States.

[Yo-Landi]
That’s correct Xeni.

[Xeni Jardin]
Crowd reaction was pretty incredible. What was it like?

[Ninja]
Trip, it was quite a trip, but I – there was a lot of people, I couldn’t see the end.

[Xeni Jardin]
Ya.

[Ninja]
It was like a sea of people.

[Xeni Jardin]
You guys were in the rave, in the rave tent, I couldn’t tell how many people, but it looked like 5,000 or so.

[Ninja]
It was like, (SG), like, Lord of The Rings, at the battle scene. Like the (CG) crowd almost with so many people.

[Xeni Jardin]
And Yo-Landi, like you were saying you, when you looked down over the crowd, you can see people looking back and they weren’t quite sure

[Yo-Landi]
Ya, there were lots of very brats, like school, some were looking at me with blank faces, like what the fuck is this! I don’t know if they hate it or love it, but it was cool. It was very cool, ya.

[Xeni Jardin]
What are the sets like that you play in South Africa, Coachella is a very different experience than anything else in the US, but what are the gigs like that you play in South Africa.

[Ninja]
When we play smaller gigs – when we get like 300 – 300 is quite nice, cause you can get really like psycho – you can – you can – bigger than that – its quite psycho-delic, its cool, but

[Yo-Landi]
We swear a lot in Afrikans like the worst you can possibly say, so the kids just dig the swearing, you know. I think all the Afrikan swearing translates here and people actually don’t know how dirty our mouths are and they are just cheering. And over there, they just come for the swearing, cause that’s really like grimy dirty shows when we play in South Africa

[Xeni Jardin]
So here in the US, they are not getting the full force of exactly how dirty you guys are!

[Yo-Landi]
Ya, I think like, at the end of the show, I see everyone fuck ????, you know, that means something really naughty! But they didn’t know what they were saying but cheered.

[Ninja]
We translated it, she said, we gonna put the translations in our – I’m gonna put translations in our inter-web-site soon. Like I’m doing it, writing it out by hand, so you can learn to speak a bit of Afrikans Zef

[Xeni Jardin]
So people can understand exactly how foul your language is

[Ninja]
The Zef, Ya cause. You can’t, you can swear more powerfully Afrikans – more powerful than any other language,

[Xeni Jardin]
What is that, tell me again?

[Yo-Landi]
It’s so ugly, like [??????????] its got this ring to it, so when you swear like, fuck ya’ll you pos, its really like, you know, i don’t know, the vowels are so harsh! So everyone is swearing in Afrikans in South Africa.

[Ninja]
In South Africa, like, the kids really love us, we are also called the national embarrassment, people are like, fuckin pissed off that we are so famous.

[Xeni Jardin]
Really?

[Ninja]
Ya, because its like, they would like us to just chill and like, just, shut up, maybe.

[Xeni Jardin]
Have you guys done, many shows outside of South Africa, in Europe?

[Yo-Landi]
None, we never toured the Antwoord outside South Africa, ever.

[Xeni Jardin]
Great.

[Yo-Landi]
Ya.

[Xeni Jardin]
So this was a pretty big deal in the US?

[Ninja]
Ya, it was our first time like a virgin, so special. It was weird, awkward, kinda weird, it was special, you know, it will get better,

[Xeni Jardin]
Do you guys have, is there like, a big scene of friends and collaborators, is there sort of a big pool of people, that your music comes out of, are you sort of, are you off somewhere alone, kind of?

[Yo-Landi]
Its like, it comes out of like, ZEF, which is a South Africa term, and its like a whole style over there, like, just like you, like common, but you don’t give a fuck but your style is like the shit and that’s when you’re like ZEF, flexin in this ultimate zone, people in South Africa are feeling that shit, sot its like, that’s where our music comes from that scene, that culture – we like – [bopping up and down] just go for it, you know.

[Ninja]
We don’t really have friends, we used to have – we have friends now, since – but only recently, since we became popular,

[Xeni Jardin]
And what about (Leon Bota)

[Ninja]
Oh, Leon is a sweet heart.

[Xeni Jardin]
Ya

[Yo-Landi]
He’s actually, a hip hop DJ, and he used to open for us, open for our sets. He’s got every single rap Cd everything – like all the cool shit. And he used to open for us, like, and we always used to have these underground parties with him, then us and the wedding DJ’s, and they play the worst music, the wedding DJ’s – the worst bests ever, like they would play like, Bon Jovi, like, Roxette, like, or like (Ask Ask Baby)

[Ninja]
Play, like Thunderstruck, Informer, Short Dick Man and what, they like to play – like at the end of the night they like play Boys II Men,

[Yo-Landi]
Slow dance,

[Xeni Jardin]
Even slow dance.

[Yo-Landi]
Even girls and girls and boys and boys, doesn’t matter, we all just go on To the end of the show.

[Ninja]
They play the best song I’ll Make Love To You, by Boys II Men, I get down to that at the end of the night, its like, my most craziest moves you can ever imagine. That’s when I freak the hardest and I make and you can’t – I can’t even believe it. The wedding DJ’s and DJ Solarize[Leon Botha] that’s how we rock parties. Leon opens and Antwoord and the wedding DJ’s fuckin

[Xeni Jardin]
And Leon is incredible. He’s like 24-25 years old.

[Ninja]
He’s doesn’t like the thing about saying – he’s kinda like this mystical creature, like, a wild fuckin artist, he’s like the biggest, he’s kinda like, yo, we love him, he’s so like, immediately, so right now, cause that’s all that actually is.

[Xeni Jardin]
And you know we were talking a little bit, Leon and I, how frustrated he was, that the Wikipedia page about him was all about his diseases all about progeria, and he;s like fuck that, you know, I’m this person, and I have this body

[Yo-Landi]
People like focus on that, typical thing, but he’s pretty wise, so he’s be alright.

[Ninja]
We all got that disease

[Xeni Jardin]
The disease that we are all going to die, eventually.

[Ninja]
Ya, why fuckin….

[Xeni Jardin]
Tell me again.

[Yo-Landi]
We all are aging and that’s a fact we have to face and he’s like cool with it, he’s doing it faster than us, he’s already ahead of us, he’s next level.

[Xeni Jardin]
So when a lot of people are seeing you for the first time, they don’t know what to make of it, and there’s this kind of horror, and shock, and they can’t look away, and they can’t stop listening, and I have to say the first time I heard you, the first time I say the video, I was like, I’m frightened of it, but I think I love it.

[Ninja]
That’s the best thing you can ever say!

[Yo-Landi]
I think our style of music, our style, we make car-crash music, like, when there is a car-crash, everyone looks, when its like kids dancing that I know hasn’t really paid that much attention, when its accidents everyone is checking it out. That’s our style, car-crash music. If that makes any sense, I don’t know.

[Xeni Jardin]
How do audiences here in the US, react to you differently, I mean, other than, understanding the language or not understanding it, is there generally more positive reaction, more curiosity here than in South Africa?

[Ninja]
I don’t know its just different, people like – everyone’s nice to us,

[Xeni Jardin]
Ya, I see all these cartoon references, in the music and in the video, like cartoons and art, Friends With You, there’s this toy company that you guys are friend with.

[Ninja]
We are friends, when I die, and go to heaven its going to be designed by FriendsWithYou

[Xeni Jardin]
Your funeral.

[Ninja]
No. In heaven, when you get to heaven. When you die, on the other side, that’s what it looked like.

[Xeni Jardin]
So, Heaven will be designed by FriendsWithYou

[Yo-Landi]
I don’t know, cause I’m not going there.

[Yo-Landi & Xeni Jardin]
(laughs)

[Xeni Jardin]
So when you guys aren’t creating music what are you listening to?

[Yo-Landi]
I don’t listen to that much music, I really dig like a really really bad rave when I’m in a good mood, I just wanna yell out and blasting it out – that’s all I wanna hear, just the worse ew, ew ew – that makes me feel, on,

[Xeni Jardin]
Its like cartoon music.

[Yo-Landi]
Like dark comic, cartoon, the rave pop, if there is something like that,

[Ninja]
(Norman Brambie), the (Scedamics), the friends at ??? played me some stuff they were like wow like psycho, like speed up techno, its like bubble gum, acid techno for kids, like, like, that’s the best thing I heard so far, recently, I think its (Norma Brambie from Popomoko) that’s my favorite shit at the moment, by far. Sorry, I had a blank there before, I was like, I was looking at the palm trees.

[Xeni Jardin]
What’s it like seeing this space for the first time, I mean this is your first time in Southern California, and we are hear at this crazy lavish mansion that used to belong to one of the greats of America Television, its not South Africa,

[Yo-Landi]
We didn’t know what the fucks going on, we’re just going with it, like yo, I don’t know, it’s like pretty – its like pumping over here in America,

[Xeni Jardin]
Ya

[Yo-Landi]
Next week we like going back to our little, third world, that will be alright, we’ll have this in our memory.

[Xeni Jardin]
You’ll go back to South Africa?

[Yo-Landi]
Ya.

[Xeni Jardin]
You are going to be here for a few days.

[Yo-Landi]
The dark depths of Africa.

[Xeni Jardin]
The dark depths of Africa.

[Yo-Landi]
But we like it there.
(check back for the rest of the interview)

Die Antwoord’s US Debut At Coachella With Xeni – Boing Boing Interview. When you’re like ZEF, flexin in this ultimate zone. I think our style of music, our style. When its accidents everyone is checking it out. That’s our style, car – crash music. If that makes any sense, I don’t know. Complete Full Script, Dialogue, Saying, Quotes, Words And Text For Die Antwoord’s US Debut At Coachella With Xeni – Boing Boing.