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Die Antwoord reacts to exploitation allegations

Cape Town – In a lengthy Facebook post on Saturday, zef rappers Die Antwoord responded to claims of exploitation made in a City Press article last week.

In the City Press article, written by Charl Blignaut, Cape Town farmer Andre Laubscher accuses Die Antwoord of exploiting their image from a group of underprivileged artists living on his farm. The allegations focused specifically on Wanga Jack, better known as the collaborating rapper on Die Antwoord's Evil Boy track and music video.

According to Laubscher, Ninja and Yo-Landi stole their image and creative material from the boys living on his farm, including Wanga, through pursuing them with booze and drugs. Read the full City Press article here.

On Saturday, Die Antwoord decided to respond to these allegations with a lengthy eight-part Facebook post.

Here are their word-for-word response as posted on their Facebook page:

WANGA : PART1

K so here’z da scoop about Wanga kids. Let’s start at the very beginning.

So… Ninja met ¥o-landi a loooooong time ago on a strange little farm in Cape Town. Now on the farm lived a creepy old man with big beard and fat tummy called Andre. Andre didn’t own the farm, he just squatted there. But in South Africa if you squat on government land for long enough, you can’t get kicked off that easily, especially if you tell everyone that the farm is a ‘shelter’ for street kids.

¥o-landi used to stay on this farm for a while when she didn’t have a place to stay, back when she was 19 years old. ¥o-landi’s best friend on the farm was a sweet kid called Wanga (who we’ll come back to in a bit).

¥o-landi started getting a bit freaked out when(50something year old) Andre started writing her love letters saying that he wanted to ‘be with her’.

¥ got even more freaked out when Andre (who likes drinking lots of red wine and painting pictures in his spare time) asked ¥o-landi if he could take some nude fotos of her.

It was Ninja who finally convinced ¥o-landi to move off the farm when Wanga (and some other boys from the farm) showed Ninja and ¥o-landi a secret box, that Andre kept hidden on the farm. Inside this box were lots and lots of fotos of nude girls (who had visited or stayed on the farm) that Andre had taken fotos of. (None of these photos were ever turned in2 paintings by the way.)

So when Ninja eventually ‘stole’ ¥o-landi from the farm shortly after this, Andre freaked the fuck out and has been fuckin pissed off with Ninja ever since.
 
WANGA : PART 2

When this recent big new hit that that Ninja and ¥o-landi are going to be starring in a big hollywood movie, some haters lost their fuckin minds, and all of a sudden, people (who we have nothing to do with) start crawling out the woodwork with all sorts of ridiculous claims.

One of the people being old creepy old Andre, who recently told Wanga to go to the newspapers with his story, which, by the way, was missing quite a few juicy details.

So after Ninja stole ¥o-landi from the farm (some time ago) her and Ninja would visit the farm from time to time to hang out with Wanga and some of the other kids. At this point in time Wanga (and some of the naughty boys from the farm) had just got out of Pollsmoor prison for getting up to mischief again.
But Ninja and ¥o-landi just loved Wanga because he was just so cool, and fun, and just kind of like, a lost soul, looking for direction in life.

Back when Die Antwoord was just starting out, N+¥ got an idea to teach the boys from the farm some dance routines and show them what it was like to perform in front of a crowd. Then Ninja hand-painted some track suits for the boys and the boys danced with N+¥ during one of their shows, which was a super fun experience 4 everyone.

Ninja taught the boys a lesson after the show, when he paid them for dancing with them. Ninja told the boys that money is nrg. He said that the more time and nrg u put in2 something you love, the more money you will get from it, and that magic doors will start opening for you in life if you do this. But if you dont give lots of time and energy to something you love, you obviously wont get that much money for it, and all the magic doors in life will stay closed to you.

WANGA : PART 3

Then anyway, just after this concert Wanga told N+¥ about a little problem he was having. Wanga told them that everytime he went home to visit his mom in the hood, the men from the hood would hit him and tease him because Wanga was not circumsized. Wanga told N¥ that he was too scared to go to the bush to get circumsized to become a ‘man’. Every year hundreds of kids die (or get left with tragic penis problems) from this old school Xhosa custom, which Ninja thought was a bit silly.

Now around about this same time, Ninja and ¥o-landi were working on a new track called EVIL BOY. This track was based on Ninjas EVIL BOY tattoo (that Ninja got a loooooong time b4 all of this.)

So when Wanga told Ninja about this little problem he was having, and what he was expected to do to ‘become a man’, Ninja lifted up his sleeve, pointed at his EVIL BOY tattoo, and said:

“Yo Wanga, why don’t you just stay ‘EVIL BOY 4 life’ like me?”

And Wanga smiled a big, relieved smile.

Then Ninja asked Wanga if he wanted to try something fun, and Wanga said, ja!

Ninja told Wanga that he was busy working on a track with ¥o-landi called EVIL BOY, and that it would maybe be cool if Wanga kicked a rap verse on this track in Xhosa with them.

WANGA : PART 4

Now Wanga didn’t know anything about rapping, but Ninja said he could maybe teach Wanga how to rap.

The 1st thing Ninja taught Wanga was that the best stuff to rap about is real life stuff.

Ninja told Wanga that he was busy writing his own ‘evil ninja’ rap verse, and Yo-landi was writing her own ‘evil witchy’ rap verse.

Then Ninja got the idea to write a rap verse for Wanga based on this Xhosa innitiation Wanga was trying to get out of.

Then Ninja and ¥o-landi wrote a hype rap verse for Wanga.

And Wanga helped Ninja translate the lyrics to Xhosa.

Then Ninja rapped the Xhosa verse on a beat (that his homie Diplo made for him).

Then Ninja gave the rap to Wanga on CD to learn.

Then N+¥ took Wanga into a studio for the 1st time and Wanga copied how Ninja rapped.

Then Ninja and Yo-landi showed Wanga how to rap some extra stuff on the EVIL BOY chorus they had written, and the track came out real cool!

And this is how Wangas raps on the Evil Boy song got made.

(Just a little quick note here kids: Wanga told the papers recently that N+¥ based their EVIL BOY character on Wangas EVIL BOY ‘artwork’.

This is just one of the delirious little fibs Wanga slid into his dodgy story.

Just for the record: Ninjas EVIL BOY tattoo was stuck into Ninja’s arm looooong before Wanga kicked his verse on the EVIL BOY song)

But anyway, lets carry on with this fun little story here…
 
WANGA : PART 5

So because the EVIL BOY track turned out so well, Ninja told Wanga, that he could carry on training with him to learn how to make more songs…

and that IF Wanga worked hard, N+¥ would even maybe take Wanga on tour overseas with them!

N+¥ paid Wanga a logical fee for his performing the verse they had written for him, and again Ninja said:
“The more time and nrg you put into the things you love, the more money you will get, and the more doors will open for you in life.”

However, after Wanga started getting a bit attention from people (and cute girls!) from his hype vocals on the EVIL BOY song…

Wanga suddenly started acting a little strange.

The 1st time N+¥ noticed this strange behaviour was when they flew Wanga up to Johannesburg to help them make the EVIL BOY video they were working real hard on. Ninja and ¥o-landi were working hands-on (as usual) with a hype little team to create the massive hand-made sets for the Evil Boy video. But when Wanga arrived at the film studio and Ninja and ¥o-landi asked him to help them… Wanga (who had just smoked a fat joint he got from someone) asked them if he could rather just go to the hotel to ‘chill out’. And suddenly…Wanga was a rock star!

Later when Ninja tried to teach Wanga how to rap with them during live shows, more problems started popping up. Wanga would get stoned and drunk before every show, even though N+¥ had told him to NEVER get wasted before a show, because it’s important to always be fresh, and furious and focussed every time you step to da mic.

N+¥ finally decided to take a little break from working with Wanga after he got FUCKED UP wasted the night before a massive new years concert he was supposed to perform at, and went missing. N+¥ later found out that Wanga missed his flight from Cape Town to Johannesburg because he was passed out comatose after parting the whole night with some homies in town.

A few days later Wanga got hold of N+¥ and said he was really sorry and begged them to give him another chance.

But working with Wanga took up SOOO much unnecesarry time and nrg that N¥ told him it would be healthy if he did his own thing for a while.
 
WANGA : PART 6

Wanga kept on phoning N+¥ and sending them messages begging them to let him rap his verse with them everytime he found out they were rapping anywhere. Wangas big love for performing live definitely had a little bit to do with all the attention he got from girls after the concerts he rapped at.

So N+¥ gave Wanga another chance to rap with them at a concert that was a few hours drive outside of Cape Town.

Wanga got his new girlfriend to give him a lift to the concert. But…when Wanga got to the concert, he told his girlfriend she wasnt allowed back-stage!

Then Wanga rapped with N+¥ again and this time, everything went quite well.

But after the show Wanga partied in the back-stage area with all his NEW girlfriends (he hooked-up back-stage passes for) and again Wanga got super fuckin wasted and partied till da early morn.

Before they left the concert, N+¥ asked Wanga if he was going to need a lift home the next day, and Wanga said:

“No thanks, I’m sorted guys!”

But the next day, while N+¥ were about to get into town after a 2 hour drive, Ninja got a call from the promoter of the concert, who then passed the phone to Wanga who was crying because his girlfriend had broken up with him (for some reason) and left him’stranded’ miles and miles away from town.

A sobbing Wanga asked Ninja and ¥o-landi if they could please come back and fetch him!

Eventually the concert promoter offered to give Wanga a lift home later after they had ‘packed up’ the concert.

Then N+¥ said to each other:

“Fuck! EVERY single time we work with Wanga, he dwanks out. He’s not taking this music stuff seriously!”

And again they decided to take another little break from working with him.

But once again, Wanga begged and pleaded with N¥ to give him ‘one last chance’ and once again, N+¥ let Wanga rap with them at another little concert in Cape Town.

But when Wanga arrived at the soundcheck in the middle of the day before the show, stinking of alcohol, N+¥ thought to themselves:

“Shit, this isn’t gonna work! Here we go again!”

Wangas drunken ‘performance’ much later that night was obviously fuckin weak.
 
WANGA : PART 7

Around this time Ninja and ¥o-landi started hearing all kinds of controversial stories from different people about Wanga:

-That Wanga was irritating the fuck out of their friends asking for dwanky favours the whole time
-That Wanga walked out of a skate-parks with someone else’s board(which nearly got him fucked up)
-That Wanga stole a super expensive camera from some dude who was visiting from overseas, after the dude did a photo-shoot with Wanga.

-And that Wanga stole a car and crashed it (fucked up drunk) into the parliament buildings in Cape Town, then ran away from the scene of the crime.

Now none of this stuff really mattered to Ninja and ¥o-landi. All that mattered to them was that Wanga did not take this music stuff very seriously, which was a bit of a let-down for them, because it had now upset their friendship with Wanga.

Whenever N+¥ bumped into Wanga in the streets of Cape Town from time to time, they didn’t say anything about all these dodgy stories they had been hearing, but the conversation was always kind of awkward, cause N+¥ didn’t really have anything to say to Wanga.
 
WANGA : PART 8

So anyway, Wanga just got out of Pollsmoor Prison recently (for the 2nd time), then decided to go to the papers, and say how Die Antwoord ‘expoited him’.

But our sweet little Wanga twisted a few facts here and there, and also left out all the fun stuff in this here note.

So there you have it kids. You guys now have 2 sides to this little story.

But with all this said, we still love Wanga.

He’s just a bit lost, and getting ‘guidance’ from the wrong people…

And if one day, Wanga says sorry to us for being naughty and telling lies…

Maybe we’ll even give him another chance… but lets see.

That’s all for now folks.

Increase da Peace.
Keep it real.
Once

out


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