South African rap-rave duo Die Antwoord have released a new video for the song “Ugly Boy,” off their latest album Donker Mag.
South African rap-rave duo Die Antwoord, featuring rap artists Ninja and Yo-Landi Vi$er, introduced the world to zef culture in 2009. Their most recent album Donker Mag came out on June 3rd, and they have just released a new freaky video for the song “Ugly Boy.”
The video opens with the title “Ugly Boy” painted in red, with Yo-Landi as a black angel sitting on a throne, and Ninja dressed as a blood-stained boxer who lights a blunt on a burning one hundred dollar bill. The rest of the video, directed by Ninja, is equally fanatic and slightly disturbing, and features cameos from a host of celebrities.
Who’s that pulling down Ninja’s gold pants? It’s Cara Delevingne. Who’s that with the nipple covers? Dita Von Teese. And who’s that smoking a cigar? None other than Jack Black.
Die Antwoord’s break came at the huge success of the hit video “Enter the Ninja,” where they introduced the world to zef culture, and got over twenty four million views on YouTube. Yo-Landi described zef culture to The Guardian stating, “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 latest album, Donker Mag, was released on June 3rd, off of which they recently released a video for “Pitbull Terrier” and “Ugly Boy.”
The video for “Ugly Boy” also featured Flea dancing like a dad at a rave, Marilyn Manson being Marilyn Manson, the ATL Twins wearing American flags and licking their lips, a rumored black face impersonator of Aphex Twin, and other cameos by Charlotte Free, Estevan Oriol, DJ Muggs, Tokkie, and Triggz. After only a day on YouTube, the video already has one million views.
In between the release of their new album and videos, Die Antwoord spent the summer touring and headlining festivals, and will be continuing touring all over the world into 2015. In addition, Pitchfork reported that Ninja and Yo-Landi will be starring as themselves in District 9 director Neill Blomcamp’s new sci-film Chappie, to be released in 2015.
In regards to the huge backlash from South African conservatives over the image Die Antwoord presents, Ninja told The Guardian,
“A lot of people wanted to ban the interweb to stop us getting known. And you can’t stop it. We’ve got this fierce fucking following – like the cutest, most freak-mode, wildest kids, and also older people who are super-duper in tune with what we’re doing, and that’s not going away – it’s getting bigger fucking fast. Bigger and bigger.”