ZEF: The Story of Die Antwoord

ZEF:-The-Story-of-Die-Antwoord
ZEF: The Story of Die Antwoord

Zef: The Story of Die Antwoord is a 2024 documentary focused on the South African band whose popularity has always drawn controversy. It’s available for viewing on Veeps. It’s the story about Yolandi Visser and Ninja’ characters and relationships and what is this ‘togetherness’. The most identifiable conventions of documentaries about music performers can be as well found in this film. It has two pacingable moments: addressing the issues of their public image and the controversies of racism, homophobia, and sexual harassment.

Few will doubt their conviction after watching Zef: The Story of Die Antwoord. They wanted to bring the audience over to their side and to explain the story the way they see it.

The main figure, or at least one-half of the couple that constitutes its face, is Yolandi. She met Ninja in 2001 outside a club in Cape Town. Like in many other music biopics, they reminisce about how it was the first time they created music. As for them, it was cool from the word go, and different to what they had come across, and that it would be groundbreaking.

Their relationship developed. They had a child whom they called Sixteen. The little family settled into an apartment in a nice building in the Gardens area of Cape Town, only a two minute walk from the central business district. In the background, home footage of a regular family awash with love and laughter is intermingled with the voice of Ninja who is vowing to win glory for himself and to provide for his family. It is a well-known tale of a Welsh struggle musician seeking his signature sound.

As the Chopovski myth would have it, members of Die Antwoord did not emerge from lower income families, which is what their types seem to suggest. The decision for Ninja and Yolandi to become Zef was a fluke. While on their way around Cape Town, a man’s rear bakkie suddenly came up in front of them. There was a man sitting in the car, who was looking backward, into their car. Yolandi christened him ‘Zef’. Ninja was puzzled by her comment but observed that Yolandi had an interest in the man. He alters his appearance and makes her do the same.

Owing to their extreme personas, they moved forward to make extreme music. They were preparing to release their first single “Enter the Ninja” and their first album SOS, the band’s first-ever title. Most of the clichés of the biopic form are very much in evidence. They continue to insist they never set out to achieve such stratospheric success. They claim we have dedicated our time, energy, and money to its creation. Quite frankly they worked hard.

This transition presents their growth through the course of time and evolution through the revolution of the internet.

Let’s not forget, though, that this was in the year 2010, and the issue of virality was more pronounced than it is now. With all the criticism, however, they did accomplish what many musicians, more so from South Africa, never did.

They are all too happy showing the renowned personalities affiliated with them. Jack Black’s inclusion is shocking, isn’t it? He claims that “his jaw fell open” as he sawEnter the Ninja” for the first time. In a later part of the documentary, Sharlto Copley who played the lead in District 9 speaks out.

Several critics have targeted the South African Zef group and its controversial society-creating, sketchy name Die Antwoord, however, this only appeared once the fanbase began viewing their story.

The first controversy is provoked by the TVs in the room showing both younger women exposing their bodies and slideshow of their engagement thanks to their songs and music video interviews. Introducing the third member, DJ Hi-Tek it’s also the introduction of their third member, DJ Hi-Tek.

One of the film objectives pursues an interview with the famous DJ Hi-Tek and instantly proceeds with the most controversial question, Weren’t you guys just recently accused of being gay? How did that rumor start and why did you guys deny it?

There is no point in discussing the mistakes at this stage.

Let’s now move on to even more questions such as where they are coming from when they say many South Africans hate them. According to them, the hatred directed at them from South Africa is related to the violence in that country. We cut to a furious Afrikaans man denouncing their music as demonic. International audiences may not have the knowledge that he is an Afrikaan actor. This is certainly not made clear in the movie. Rather, it opts to depict him as though he is some ordinary person whose opinions are representative of many people in that country.

There are South African musicians who have good things to say about them, for example, the musician called Moonchild. She accompanied the band on tours in 2018.

The documentary presents these tours. For the period spanning from 2011 to around 2015, the band was on a strong run and many seemed to love them while they released songs such as “I Fink U Freeky” and “Baby’s on Fire” which are also their popular tracks. Sixteen their daughter talks about how she used to enjoy being included in their music videos. I have no doubt that this statement was made on purpose.

So much of the drama and sequelae from within South Africa at least during this time frame had anything to do with the private lives of the band members.

People were outraged by their bizarre music videos, and it wasn’t even their violent content or satanic images that really ticked them off.

Rustum Kozain, a South African poet, put the argument across when he wrote ‘Die Antwoord is Blackface’. Ironically, this was before they used dark face paint in their videos and shrugged off the racism.

Even worse, the shows from the documentary which exhibit their daughter Sixteen are not her actual appearances in their music clips. She was covered in black paint for the “I Fink U Freeky” video, something the documentary completely neglects.

I should emphasize that I\’m not condemning her. She was only an innocent child forced into a performance. I would like to point out that in Zef: The Story of Die Antwoord, the truth about the group is being constructed. Which is targeting a specific narrative that doesn’t include what the band would rather its audience not see.

All narratives are selective, but this is actually a rather different case when the selectiveness seems deliberate. These are manipulation tactics that were borrowed more not to cleanse the band, but to smother the multitude of nasty things that have been said about them.

In this confrontational sense, it is perhaps the clearest, in how they deal with the sexual abuse allegations from their adopted son Tokkie. They don’t even say that he is abusing them by making such an allegation.

She said, In the hood, was out of the many times they went to visit with their friends and that was where they met Tokkie for the first time. She claims they provided financial assistance to his mother for school fees and pieces of clothing. Later on, they began taking him on tour. Yolandi is concerned that they have overindulged him rather because he has always been quite naughty.

She further adds that such a thing was never in their power. So as soon as he reached 18, they cut the funds. Very shortly he went to YouTube ‘and tells every of our fans that we have lived him in poverty and walked away from him.

According to Ninja, they want some professional help for him now because they have nothing more to offer.

Which video? The video that grabs attention the most in Tokkie’s biography is the one with the title Wide Awake Podcast where he featured. His claims include drug addiction, range of allegations of sexual grooming, and other things. It was not only about being left and neglected, so why Yolandi claims this is how it was? If she is referring to one of her other YouTube videos, which one was it?

Important is the degree to which they resolve these allegations in the part of the story when there is a doubt concerning the loyalty between Yolandi and Ninja.

The two had been growing apart for quite some time now. They are the defacto heart of the band and this heart is under strain they have to come together and deliver the extraordinary performance that all music movies end with. And with the allegations swept under the carpet and exiting the premises, yes, they do this.

Yolandi and Ninja say that she is now sixteen and suicidal about her parents’ split. Yes, they do it for her. This is a little family moment that I do not want to be cynical about.

Back together as a family, and what’s next for the bad, the man behind the camera asks them this as well. Ninja, on the other hand, adds that he would like them to make music again, and suggests that he and Yorandi are going to marry soon. “Age of Illusion,” the music credits the last rolls with them on screen.

Emotions after seeing Zef: The Story of Die Antwoord are neither anger, nor disappointment for me. I have not bothered to pay attention to this band since I listened to their music for the first time in my life in a cuisine in 2010. I find it shocking that a group purporting to be shocking and “out there” makes a ‘documentary’ where the main plot of it is simply about whitewashing oneself surrounded by the same old cliches.

Should they be out there, Diehard fans may refer to the film to demonstrate that there is nothing wrong with the band. Yet the illustrations of their wrongdoings lie almost beneath the surface of this particular narrative.

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