In honor of the oldest sufferer of Hutchinson–Gilford Progeria Syndrome dying this week of old age at 26, Leon Botha, I thought it would be only right that I posted a video that got him famous on the “interwebs”.
‘Enter The Ninja’ is an interesting track by South African hip-hop group, Die Antwoord. It features the late Leon Botha providing the beats who is also featured in the video. As well as doing projects with Die Antwoord, he also was a painter focusing on Hip-Hop culture.
On Die Antwoord (Afrikaan for ‘The Answer‘), I call them a hip-hop group but they are more commonly known as a Zef-Side. Zef-Side, from my understanding, is like an anti-rap culture in that rather than being about the bling, it about being poor but fancy, to quote group member Yolandi Visser “Zef is, you’re poor but you’re fancy. You’re poor but you’re sexy, you’ve got style” . I’m not normally into rap, the Ninja’s flow is very impressive and I think that the group should be taken as seriously as you would with the Beastie Boys.
I think a lot of the lyrical content might be lost on people who don’t understand South African culture, I only understand some of it thanks to a few of the guys I work with, but worth giving them a bit of a listen and maybe read a bit into the lyrics. I know the first time I heard ‘Evil Boy‘ I was a bit confused, but looking into it I saw some real sense in the song.
