Poor Ninja and Yo-Landi are all by their lonesome again, having ditched multi-million dollar record company Interscope. Don’t go flexing your worry-muscles though. All by their lonesome – dreaming up controversy, upside-down beats, and heart-attack inducing rhymes – is where they’re at their rosiest.

According to Die Antwoord’s online diary: “So anyway… Interscope offered us a bunch of money again to release our new album Tension, but this time they also tried to get involved with our music, to try and make us sound like everyone else out there at the moment. So we said: ‘You know what, rather hang on to your money, buy yourself something nice… we gonna do our own thing. Bye bye.’”

The news that Die Antwoord have axed their carefully selected record company, and in such a public, finger-in-the-face kinda way, after barely having started their contract, left many folk scratching their noggins in confusion on Monday. Here’s this rather new outfit, still all delicate and fresher-than-thou, who by some cosmic hiccup become a viral hit and land the South African Musician’s Jackpot – a really real contract with a respected, edgy, really real AMERICAN RECORD COMPANY – and they go and flush it down the tube coz’ they wanna be able to swear more??!!

Well, not really…

A Brief history of Rhyme

Those who only got word of Watkin Tudor Jones (aka Ninja) via the hyper-downloaded Die Antwoord music vids, are forgiven for taking Die Antwoord at face value. Newish Hip-Hop freak act dreamt up in puffs of Tic and Ganja in the abysmal scapes of the Cape Flats, who tripped onto fame, and, like fish hitchhiking on Route 66, are a wee bit out of their depth. Not much could be further from the truth.

A wee motley crue of Waddy devotees have been following the one-man-army ever since his genius became audible, bubbling through Max Normal‘s freshly squeezed whiteboy funk. When Waddy casually imploded that outfit after a single album (in what would become his standard modus operandi), these same fans started sniffing into the past for other traces of the then-still hugely unknown freakboy. Traces were found all the way back to ye ol’ Nineties one hit wonder The Original Evergreen, and their highly unfortunate hit ‘Puff The Magic and Drag-On’ (geddit?), after which he pops up at random delivering inspired free-scat cameos for the likes of jazz pianist Paul Hanmer’s Unofficial Language and elsewhere.

But the real, wackedy wack goodness only started happening after Max Normal’s surprise demise. Like a box of firecrackers going off all over the timespace continuum, Waddy could be seen snapping projects into and out of existence like he was playing Schroedinger’s Cat: A line of creepily gorgeous fluffy toys launched at the Bell Roberts Art gallery; darkly hip music videos for unheard-of hits; a bizarre cartoon TV-series; the overblown majesty of The Constructus Corporation [unleashed in the form of hitherto unseen multi-media yumness: Hardcover book/CD/Graphic Novel (feat. Nikhil Singh)/Extraterrestrial Hip-Hop script/portal to several other dimensions - all in one, mum], sommer launching the careers of latterday Sibot and Markus Wormstorm while he was at it. Thusly Constructus was disbanded and The Fantastic Kill born (an outright masterpiece of an album followed, arguably launching the career of Spoek Mathambo). Thusly Fantastic Kill was quietly put to sleep to make way for the confusingly named MaxNormalTV, and on, and on.

What fascinates is not that Die Antwoord were signed to a big label overseas; what fascinates is that Waddy could (seem to) commit to sustaining a project for longer than the requisite debut spectacle. Hell I was surprised he could sign his entire signature on the contract before announcing Die Antwoord a sick and twisted fad and unveiling HeliumNasty, his latest (fictional) venture.

One thing’s for sure, good ol’ Waddy never left. Again. Zef speed ahead!

**Keep your eyes and tentacles peeled for new album ‘TEN$ION‘ due out through Die Antwoord’s newly launched independent label ZEF RECORDZ.

WORDS: Mickdotcom