Ugly Boy
November 4, 2014 1:25 PM   Subscribe

Die Antwoord have just released a (NSFW) video for their most pop accessable song "Ugly Boy" which directly samples Ageispolis by Aphex Twin.

The song also appears to sample "I Believe It's Magic" by Mick Smiley off the Ghostbusters soundtrack.

Also appearing in the video: Flea, Dita Von Teese, Jack Black, Marylin Manson, the ATL twins, models Cara Delevingne and Charlotte Free, and tattoo artist Trigger whom the video is dedicated to.

Pitchfork is reporting that that is not Aphex Twin in blackface and the "Hi, My Name is God" sweatshirt.
posted by Catblack (44 comments total) 18 users marked this as a favorite


 
well, it doesn't seem like they're doing anything new musically - of course, sampling a 20 year old track doesn't help with that
posted by pyramid termite at 1:42 PM on November 4, 2014 [1 favorite]


Pitchfork article.
posted by saladin at 1:42 PM on November 4, 2014


You had me at "Ghostbusters soundtrack".
posted by bizwank at 1:50 PM on November 4, 2014


HEY, it's the Soul II Soul beat.
posted by NoMich at 1:50 PM on November 4, 2014


I probably should have said 'references' instead of 'samples'.
posted by Catblack at 1:52 PM on November 4, 2014


It also seems to reference "You Got It" by Roy Orbison.
posted by snofoam at 1:57 PM on November 4, 2014


Folks. Sit down. Trailer for new Neill Blomkamp film starring Hugh Jackman, Sigourney Weaver... and Yolandi & Ninja.
posted by gwint at 2:03 PM on November 4, 2014 [19 favorites]


Well, that was...average. Still not a fan.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:06 PM on November 4, 2014 [1 favorite]


It sounds less like they're sampling the track and more like they're just letting it ride.

When I think of sampling I think of Public Enemy or Daft Punk, where it's hard to figure out what the original track even was. Singing on top of an instrumental track does not count in my book.
posted by foobaz at 2:07 PM on November 4, 2014


"Niell Blomkamp's making me a movie star"
-- Yolandi Vi$$er
Baby's On Fire (off the album Ten$ion, 2012)
posted by komara at 2:10 PM on November 4, 2014 [2 favorites]


zef4life
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:16 PM on November 4, 2014


When I think of sampling I think of Public Enemy or Daft Punk, where it's hard to figure out what the original track even was.

Edwin Birdsong, "Cola Bottle Baby."
posted by Foosnark at 2:20 PM on November 4, 2014 [5 favorites]


Die Antwoord is one of those bands that I want to like - I really really want to, because the concept is so interesting, the members are so wonderfully weird and their range of artistic influences is great. But then, you know, there's the music.
posted by ZaphodB at 2:22 PM on November 4, 2014 [11 favorites]


foobaz: It sounds less like they're sampling the track and more like they're just letting it ride.

When I think of sampling I think of Public Enemy or Daft Punk, where it's hard to figure out what the original track even was. Singing on top of an instrumental track does not count in my book.
Then that's a fairly personal idiomatic usage, because the rest of us generally mean this.
posted by IAmBroom at 2:23 PM on November 4, 2014




It sounds less like they're sampling the track and more like they're just letting it ride

I could get more upset about this kind of thing if I didn't love Portishead's first album so much
posted by aubilenon at 2:29 PM on November 4, 2014 [2 favorites]


Apparently Neil originally wanted Ninja for Matt Damon's role in Elysium.
posted by softlord at 2:43 PM on November 4, 2014


This song and video is way less interesting than their previous work. I love their stuff like Fatty Boom Boom or Baby's on Fire for being deliberately outré. Also for referencing South African culture stuff I don't understand. This is just a bunch of silly imagery and checks of other mainstream pop culture. Is this their effort to make a sellout single and get rich? Or is it just not very interesting? It sure ain't no I Fink U Freeky.
posted by Nelson at 2:48 PM on November 4, 2014 [9 favorites]


While I have enormous respect for anyone who makes it in the entertainment biz, I think these guys should retire the Zef schtick and create something else (they even seem to be playing themselves in the new Blomkamp film). It doesn't have to be a reinvention, just a variation on a theme.
posted by Nevin at 3:00 PM on November 4, 2014 [1 favorite]


Ha, I like the Aphex Twin logo hoodie lurking in the background.
posted by en forme de poire at 3:01 PM on November 4, 2014


I like the use of the Aphex song as the beat, but I just can't get into their vocals regardless of whatever other merits they have.
posted by codacorolla at 3:13 PM on November 4, 2014


As someone who's been getting back into the world of Shadowrun role-playing and pc-rpg games, their visuals really blend and mesh with my mental image of the occult side of the cyberpunk world. And I agree with the FPP about this song's accessibility thanks to the sampling, at least compared to other Die Antwoord music. I'm giving this one a thumbs up.
posted by Metro Gnome at 4:19 PM on November 4, 2014


I'm with Metro Gnome. Yeah it's more 'accessible' than most of Die Antwoord's previous works - I'm sure some people hate this - but I'm liking it a lot.

The video is quite good, too. I never would have believed it, but Ninja's getting better with age. Seeing Ninja and Yoli in that Blomkamp trailer is strangely 'natural'. I think this could work.
posted by doctor tough love at 4:25 PM on November 4, 2014 [1 favorite]


I can't see a thread about Aphex Twin-derived art without posting this classical guitar cover of Rhubarb.
posted by A dead Quaker at 4:47 PM on November 4, 2014 [2 favorites]


I've liked their music (which I see as inseparable from the visual aspects) since I first encountered it, possibly from an FPP here some years back. This song is way more mellow, both as music and visually, than some of their previous work, but it's still good. I'll be curious if this marks a new direction or if it is just an experiment for them.
posted by Dip Flash at 4:55 PM on November 4, 2014


I'm sure they're very nice in person.
posted by vverse23 at 5:16 PM on November 4, 2014


I would like to think that the Die Antwoord guy Ninja is actually polite, shy and soft-spoken when off-stage, a deeply private person.
posted by ovvl at 5:17 PM on November 4, 2014 [5 favorites]


I would like to think that the Die Antwoord guy Ninja is actually polite, shy and soft-spoken when off-stage, a deeply private person.

Die Antwoord’s Ninja ‘is pure evil’

shrug
posted by hafehd at 5:31 PM on November 4, 2014


I've been listening to DA's later album lately, and I'm pretty sure that just about every song is about Ninja's dick. The sole exception may be the song which is just Yolandi laughing for a full minute and then saying something in Afrikaans, and for all I know that may be about Ninja's dick too.
posted by Itaxpica at 5:33 PM on November 4, 2014 [1 favorite]


Some of the commenters in the article hafehd posted above seem to think that the story is bogus. On the other hand, I did like this comment:

They're performance artists, it's an act. Albeit a relentless one, important enough to them to never drop character.
posted by Nevin at 5:50 PM on November 4, 2014


The article also uses some great slang, notably gatvol
posted by Nevin at 5:52 PM on November 4, 2014 [4 favorites]


Hey Fatty Boom Boom

Let's go grab us a pic-a-nic basket
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 6:56 PM on November 4, 2014 [2 favorites]


Nothing like two middle class white (and in South African terms that means wealthy) people pretending to be poor.
posted by PenDevil at 10:35 PM on November 4, 2014


Ever since Enter the Ninja, I've assumed Die Antwoord was a joke. I think they thought so too, back then, but somewhere along the line both they and parts of the audience made the mistake of starting to take everything seriously.

And yeah, that article hafehd links contains some pretty vile shit, which kind of confirms what I thought, these are upper-class assholes slumming it and pretending to be poor and have bad taste as a joke, and they think it's fucking hilarious. Fuck that.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 12:07 AM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]


Elysium? Shoot, Ninja would make the best Gully Foyle ever.
posted by j_curiouser at 12:09 AM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]


that article hafehd links contains some pretty vile shit,

Yeah, it is all performance art and the article is in on the joke. I agree it is weird people have taken them seriously. They are very much university-educated art rockers that subvert the media and tweak their noses at us. I only wish they were more transgressive, they chose some pretty mainstream "transgressive" poises for this act (which I realise was part of the point). They have a long history of trying new identities. I wonder if they ever expected to get this big though. I miss their rough around the edges style now they have so much money and are so slickly produced.
posted by saucysault at 12:40 AM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]


Die Antwoord’s Ninja ‘is pure evil’

Presumably this explains his scant exposure in that trailer.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 2:11 AM on November 5, 2014


Nothing like two middle class white (and in South African terms that means wealthy) people pretending to be poor.

Well, ish. You're right that they're middle class art school kids appropriating working class white Afrikaaner culture but they're not pretending to be black.
posted by atrazine at 2:42 AM on November 5, 2014


...pretending to be black.

They're actually appropriating the culture of low income working class white communities (they exist!) specifically those who live on the East Rand of Johannesburg or the Northern Suburbs of Cape Town.
posted by PenDevil at 3:08 AM on November 5, 2014


Yeah, it is all performance art and the article is in on the joke. I agree it is weird people have taken them seriously.

I've wondered if they have a "what do we do now?" plan for success? They started as a ridiculously out-there performance art project that has taken on a life and momentum of its own, and I can't see any way that the boundaries don't start getting blurry between life and art, as well as creating the issue of difficulty changing to a new performance.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:04 AM on November 5, 2014


...I can't see any way that the boundaries don't start getting blurry between life and art, as well as creating the issue of difficulty changing to a new performance.

If anything they do seem to be committed. As far as I can tell Ninja's "prison" tattoos (which he never had during his previous musical incarnations) are real.
posted by PenDevil at 9:44 AM on November 5, 2014 [1 favorite]


Super late to the game, but: I live under a rock, so I'd never heard Die Antwoord in my life before I encountered this post.

I pressed play on the "Ugly Boy" video for the first time and spent the next few minutes shifting uncomfortably in my chair with a furrowed brow. I was pretty sure that the very strong feelings I was having were all just different facets of not really digging it, but I couldn't really put my finger on it. I went to bed that night with the imagery stuck in my head, where it tentacled into my dreams, and I woke up the next day with the song thrumming in every corner of my brain.

I pressed play for the second time, and the proverbial gates of heaven seemed to shift to open just a bit to let some light out. I was on the right track.

So by the time I had pressed play the third, fourth, fifth, and nth times, and then watched all of their other videos, I Got It, profoundly and overwhelmingly and above all joyously. And my god, it is so unbelievably good. I bought all of their records so I don't have to listen to any other music ever again and I've spent the intervening week scouring all of the extant interwebs trying to track down all of Waddy Jones' other projects (FPP forthcoming) because I think he's an actual, bona fide genius. Or crazy. Or both! But definitely very, very wealthy all the same. I can't believe people like this and don't like Insane Clown Posse -- they're two sides of the same coin. DA : ICP :: upper-middle-class art school graduates : poor high school dropouts.

This is just a very long way of saying thank you, Catblack. DA are a serious game-changer for me and without your post I would have had absolutely no idea. Fok yes.
posted by divined by radio at 6:51 AM on November 10, 2014 [2 favorites]


I can't believe people like this and don't like Insane Clown Posse -- they're two sides of the same coin. DA : ICP :: upper-middle-class art school graduates : poor high school dropouts.

The second sentence answers the question posed in your first sentence. The class aspect is central to why they get such different critical and popular receptions. And yes, please make that FPP!
posted by Dip Flash at 7:01 AM on November 10, 2014 [2 favorites]


Here's the FPP!
posted by divined by radio at 5:44 PM on November 12, 2014 [2 favorites]


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