The latter featured Leon Botha, an experimental South African artist and one of the world’s oldest survivors of the premature aging disease progeria, who appeared as the group’s DJ. A year later, the videos they created for the tracks “Zef Side” and “Enter the Ninja” became viral hits. That same year they recorded their debut album, SOS, and introduced “Zef,” which fused hip-hop, electro, and rave music. Their early stage shows were outrageous, with Yo-Landibaiting and flipping off the audience, while Ninja rapped and danced, wearing only his trademark Dark Side of the Moonboxer shorts. The idea for a more vulgar rave-rap group began in 2008, but it wasn’t until a year later that Die Antwoord - which is Afrikaans for “The Answer” - began playing live. Emerging from Cape Town, South Africa, the electronic hip-hop duo Die Antwoord struck Internet viral gold with their video hit “Enter the Ninja,” but they’re really conceptual artists Watkin Tudor Jones and Yo-Landi Vi$$er presenting their “inner zef.” Before assuming the roles of Ninja and Yo-Landi for Die Antwoord, the two were involved with satirical projects like MaxNormal.TV - which saw them wearing three-piece business suits and delivering motivational hip-hop - and the Constructus Corporation: a hip-hop fantasy group based around a comic book called the Ziggurat.
