VIDEO: Lekker 'zef' music is our Antwoord to Eminem
February 7, 2010
An Afrikaans rap group has taken the Internet by storm with explicit in-your-face lyrics and provocative performances.
A website set up by the group, Die Antwoord (The Answer), has received millions of visits in the past four days, crashing the server it was hosted on after the group featured on blogs www.boingboing.net and www.dlisted.com.
They perform self-styled "zef" music (an Afrikaans term loosely meaning redneck) in Afrikaans and English, which has raised some eyebrows among conservative Afrikaaners.
The group's fans on Facebook have doubled in recent days and one of their videos on YouTube has been viewed more than 200 000 times.
"Our Internet site has taken about three million hits in the past four days. It crashed on the first day and we had to pay R3 000 (to the service provider) and went broke," said frontman, who is only known as Ninja.
The website - www.dieantwoord.com - which is streaming the group's first album, has since been moved to a US-based server to handle the traffic.
Die Antwoord has also built a sizeable following on micro-blogging site Twitter, with some tweets comparing the group to Eminem.
Ninja said the group, which also comprises blonde singer Yo-Landi Vi$$er and DJ Hi-Tek, started performing a year ago.
"We didn't get booked for ages," Ninja said.
"Now after three days we are being offered R50 000 for a gig.
"I wake up at three in the morning to check all the e-mails."
Die Antwoord will tour Europe and Scandinavia from April and the US later in the year.
They have been talking to a record label in the Netherlands about a contract but have also been approached by a major global record company.
"We don't have jobs, we didn't have anything before this," said Ninja.
"This thing blew up and I think we transferred the emotion that we put into our music on to the internet". - Reuters
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