Help Me Out

"What the fuck? Jesus Christ! Help me out, all I want is to be surprised!"

I'm honestly surprised that I like Die Antwoord as much as I do. I have never intentionally listened to rap or hip hop unless you count Mindless Self Indulgence, which I'd guess most people don't.

Hilarious lady-blog The Hairpin introduced me to the music video for "I Fink U Freeky," an enormously catchy single from "Ten$ion," the second album from the band fronted by Ninja and Yo-landi Vi$$er.

Anyone that knows me can see why I'd be disinclined to enjoy this band. If I hadn't spent the last two-plus weeks listening almost exclusively to their music and I read the above paragraph I'd be like, "Yeah... no thanks." Intentional, annoying misspelling? Dollar-signs not only in a stage name but also the album name? That'd be enough to put me off. My text window is gangrenous with red underlines.

But holy crap, guys. Ten$ion is awesome. I can't stop listening to it, even though it's so good it's distracting. I'm trying to figure out some ongoing work shit but I'm bumping my lily-white head to their fat techno-style beats instead.

It doesn't hurt that Ninja and Yo-landi are South Africans and have fantastic fucking accents when they're not rapping in Afrikaans or Xhosa, which they pepper liberally throughout their lyrics. They have a kid together (named Sixteen Jones, adorbs) and have a lot of spiteful things to say about their old label, Interscope Records, whom they told to fuck off before founding their own label to release Ten$ion. They're rude and irreverent and hilarious and just so, so interesting.

Yo-landi's strange high-pitched voice is fun to listen to and Ninja has an unending supply of great deliveries. They roll the majority of their Rs and the South African accent they employ makes every word a treat.

Personal track favorites include, well, almost all of them. Even the ones I'd skip over the first week are now stuck in my head all day. I'll list some of my favorite lines instead:

"Fuck what you think I do what I want, I can make a million little muthafuckahs jump! Jump muthafuckah! Jump muthafuckah Jump!"

"What happened to all the cool rappers from back in the day? Now all these rappers sound exactly the same, it's like one big inbred fuck-fest. No, I do not want to stop, collaborate or listen."

"Bokka bokka! Yippie-ki-yay motherfucker!"

"Yo I'm a lazy arse, scruffy hair, outa bed stumbling grumbling: WHERE'S MY COFFEE?!" (Yo-landi)

"Ninja fuckin' ugly on the skin, but Ninja very lovely from within."

"When dealing with an idiot there's really nothing you can say, next time you ask me 'Is it real?' I'm gonna punch you in the face."

"Put my peddle to the metal and I'm scorching my tires, middle finger in the air ja fok julle naaiers!" (This pops in my head a lot during my decompressing Saints Row sessions. "Fok julle naaiers" basically means "Fuck you all" and sounds like "fuck yell-a nye-ers.")

Ninja's line, "What the fuck? Jesus Christ! Help me out, all I want is to be surprised!" as he complains about the state of hip hop today perfectly encapsulates my feelings towards a lot of contemporary shit, of any entertainment medium.

Because that's all I want, to be surprised.