From Squarepusher's "Come on My Selector" to Missy Elliott's "Da Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)", great music videos are bursts of sound and vision that leave an indelible impression. Director's Cut is a Pitchfork News feature in which we chat with music video directors about their creations. The men and women behind the camera are often overlooked in today's YouTube era, but this feature aims to highlight their hard work while showcasing the best videos currently linking around the internet. A little behind-the-scenes dirt couldn't hurt, too.
For this edition, we spoke with Die Antwoord leader Ninja, who directed the head rush of extreme rap-rave otherness known as the "Evil Boy" video. While the clip is another WTF-fest featuring weird monsters, raps about penises, a cameo by Diplo, and a woman with no nipples, it turns out there are logical explanations behind much of its absurd imagery. Well, maybe "logical" isn't the right word, but everything is based in some sort of reality, which is sort of shocking in itself.
When we chatted with Ninja on the phone, he was at an L.A. cafe marveling at a limited edition figurine of the well-endowed Evil Boy drawing that helped inspire the subsequent song and video. The figurine is one of many multi-media projects the crew are currently working on-- action figures, a video game, a feature film, a short film with director Harmony Korine, and a video for "Rich Bitch" are all in the works, according to Ninja. He speaks about as fast as he raps (which is very fast), his thoughts pinging around like a jet-fueled bouncy ball. He's got a lot to say-- about America's cultural hegemony, South African monsters, penis-cutting rituals, Diplo's hair, and more-- and we pretty much let him say it.
Pitchfork: The "Enter the Ninja" video came out of nowhere early this year and was a huge hit online. But now that a lot of people know who you guys are, were you worried about topping it with the "Evil Boy" video?
Ninja: It's funny because we were feeling the opposite way about "Enter the Ninja". I almost got frustrated in a weird way when "Enter the Ninja" came out and blew up because it's not even the tip of the iceberg-- it's like a little sliver of the iceberg.
We had this explosion, but the explosion was building up inside us for a long time so when it occurred-- [makes boom noise]-- we just wanted to keep going with the same force and speed. So while we were on tour this year in all different countries like Japan, Switzerland, Norway, and Canada, I was writing notes the entire time and drawing illustrations and designing all the "Evil Boy" sculptures.
With the paintings in the "Enter the Ninja" video, I wanted to take the elements of drawings by retarded people and children and criminals and make that type of art three dimensional. So with the "Evil Boy" video I wanted everything to move so it'd overload the senses. We put care into every single detail so that the background got as much force as the foreground. The point was to make your brain unable to get it all in so you can watch it a lot of times and see something different, which is quite nice.
Pitchfork: Even though some of the verse by guest rapper Wanga (above) is translated in the video I feel like a lot of people may still be confused by it.
Ninja: It's quite an in-depth thing. It's basically about tribal circumcision. It's part of a tradition that's in the black Xhosa tribe in South Africa. When you turn 19 you have to go into the bush for like one week with a blanket and your underpants-- no shoes-- and get your penis chopped up with a kitchen knife. No disinfectants; no pain killers. You get the ash from the fire and you rub it onto the penis and you rub it around your face.
We've known Wanga since he was a street kid. He lives in this house in Cape Town and squats on a farm. This year, Wanga was supposed to go to one of these rituals because he wasn't circumcised. We thought maybe he just shouldn't go because 60 kids fucking died this year because their penises didn't work properly afterward and shit. So I asked him what would happen if he didn't go to the bush, and he said that he wouldn't be a man and he wouldn't be able to speak to the other men. So I asked him why he was speaking to me and he said, "Because you're cool, Ninja." Then he looked at my tattoo and said he wanted to be "Evil Boy for life."
The worst words in the Xhosa language are "umnqundu wakho." It means you're a bumhole. You're not even supposed to say that aloud because people freak out about it. So we were like, "Oh fuck, you should start your rap with that." So when you play "Evil Boy" in South Africa around a group of people who know the language, you'll hear a lot of African women shrieking as if someone just stole their baby.
Pitchfork: Wow.
Ninja: Another element in his verse is about how the real Xhosa men with the circumcised penises are unbelievably fucking homophobic. Wanga doesn't give a fuck-- we're not anti-gay, we're just like, "whatever." The rap is actually a taunt, when he says, "Don't touch my penis/ I'm not a gay." That's pretty much the worst insult to Xhosa men-- who are anti-gay yet they take 19-year-old boys' penises into their hands. It's pretty weird to touch another man's penis when you're not a gay.
A lot of Americans are a little bit sensitive and shit but it's not really our problem because people have their issues and they should keep it to themselves. Our DJ Fishsticks is gay, and we make gay and straight jokes the whole time. So Wanga's verse is his about how he'd rather be a superstar than a dead kid lying in a fucking ditch with a fucking chopped up penis.
Pitchfork: Do you expect people who aren't from South Africa to get the meaning behind that without knowing the cultural history?
Ninja: You can only get so much. If you go to Japan, for instance, you'll go as a tourist and see weird shit like a beetle as big as your hand. But you have to stay there a while to actually get it. We're basically just exporting our South African experience. We want to bring it to a certain fun level so that people get into it. But Americans are like, [American accent] "I get it"-- they say that a lot. Americans think they need to get it. The thing is, in South Africa, there's a lot of stuff that you're not necessarily gonna get from the get-go.
American topics and culture are kinda over-exposed. The whole world knows a whole lot about America-- from the Wild fuckin' West to gangsta rap, Hollywood to the fuckin' Deep South. So we're very influenced by the presentation, but South Africa is like undiscovered real estate. There's still a lot of shit that no one knows about going on in a lot of different countries in the world. Like, who's your favorite Polish pop star?
Pitchfork: I don't know.
Ninja: Yeah, me neither. It's kind of weird to be like the first thing to come out of South Africa that's going like freak-mode large. We didn't know it was gonna be like that. So we want to keep bringing stuff from our experience out into our art and music. Once again, we're just getting warmed up.
Pitchfork: I feel like when Americans are faced with something strange and different like you guys, it can be confusing in a good way.
Ninja: Yeah, it is good. For us, it's an even bigger freak-out. We're from this little fishing village in the bottom of Africa where nothing fucking happens. And, all of the sudden, we're getting trucked around this fuckin' whole world like a science fiction adventure.
Do you know that TV series "The Office"? When they brought it to America, they made it American. They Americanize everything. The weird thing is, you can't Americanize your own work. People were like, [American accent] "Can you guys please rap in an American accent and explain all your lyrics?" But our stuff does a weird thing to your brain because you're getting some of it but there's a lot of stuff you're not getting. And I think that's what people are most amazed about. We didn't know it was gonna happen. We're the most tripped-out by this.
We're just trying to blow up while we're still alive instead of like Michelangelo, who blew up just after he was outtie 5G. We're trying to avoid that.
Pitchfork: Back to the video, who made that huge Evil Boy sculpture that turns in the background?
Ninja: With that, I drew some three dimensional sketches and then contacted the people who designed the ships from District 9. Then this lady Marcia [Vermaak] sculpted that giant.
Pitchfork: Was that a weird project for her?
Ninja: Yeah, she's never sculpted such a big penis in her life. She was really into it though. She designed all the trees in the forest and then suggested putting a lot of penises on the trees. It's quite funny-- all these penises growing out of trees.
Pitchfork: What's the deal with Diplo's haircut in the video?
Ninja: He did the beat and I told him that he if he wanted to be in the video he had to cut his hair. He got pissed off because he had been growing the back for a long time and he really wanted a tail but I shaved it off. He was sulking a bit while I was cutting his hair, but then he got over it.
Pitchfork: How did you meet him?
Ninja: We didn't know who Diplo was, but then someone said Diplo wrote about how he was was obsessed with Yo-Landi's voice. Then he sent one of his retarded emails to us and we started writing back and forth. Diplo can't even spell properly and his e-mails are really dumb. He has dyslexia and stuff. But he's kinda funny.
Then he sent us this beat and we liked it but we forgot to tell him we liked it. So he got insecure and said, "Oh, this beat sucks, just ignore that I ever sent it." And we were like, "No, you idiot, we really like this beat." Then we made the "Evil Boy" song and now we're really best friends. He's one of my favorite people.
When we e-mailed him to tell him the "Evil Boy" video was out he was in Jamaica and couldn't see it. So then Yo-Landi told him that we weren't able to use any of his shots in the video because he looked fat. And then he said, "Please give me another chance!" He was actually starving himself for three weeks before the shoot, but then ate like ate 23,000 peanuts on his way from Florida to the shoot in South Africa. But then he saw himself in the video and he didn't look that fat.
Pitchfork: [laughs] Not really.
Ninja: But he shaved off his mustache because one weird black chick in South Africa told him that he looked like Hitler and that it was hot. He got all insecure about it and shaved his mustache off like a pussy. But I still think he looks cool, like Mickey Rourke from Angel Heart
Pitchfork: Is there any symbolic meaning behind the hairy monster (above) in the video?
Ninja: The monster! Oh my goodness-- that's called a Tokoloshe. It's the most feared African demon; the African people are really superstitious. It's just a little black hairy thing, a little man with a big fat stomach. He's really terrifying and comes out at nighttime and he's got a penis as big as a horse's. And African ladies explained to us that if they're having a wet dream, it actually means that the Tokoloshe is boning them in their sleep and their husband will never be able to satisfy them again because of the Tokoloshe's mega-penis. That's why if you go into the ghetto now a lot of African women have their beds on top of piled-up bricks.
Also, you can put a curse on someone in Africa by getting a witch doctor to send them a Tokoloshe. The witch doctor mixes medicine and blood and herbs and then pours this mixture over a Tokoloshe voodoo doll. And the voodoo doll will come to life and the witch doctor can command it to come to their house and fuck it all up. A Tokoloshe can ruin your financial situation or make you divorce your wife. Another thing that people can do to make a Tokoloshe-- and they do this in the ghettos in South Africa-- is have sex with the animal.
Pitchfork: OK ...
Ninja: Like a man will have sex with the animal and then the animal gives birth to a Tokoloshe. Only children can see a Tokoloshe; it's invisible to adults. So we thought it'd be quite cool to have the Tokoloshe in the video. Someone said that it looked kinda like the monsters from Where the Wild Things Are.
Pitchfork: So are you paying tribute to that myth?
Ninja: Well, it's not a myth. Some people seriously don't wanna fucking talk about that shit. We were just thinking of different Evil Boy elements, so the Tokoloshe is pretty much an Evil Boy himself. He's just a little mischievous man-boy thing with a giant demon penis. It came from one of my lyrics: "I'm gonna roll to the club like a Tokoloshe/ Ninja's hung like a fuckin' horse."
Pitchfork: Are you going out of your way to expose these taboos of South African culture?
Ninja: It's not really a taboo, it's just there. What does taboo mean again?
Pitchfork: Like things that people don't want to talk about.
Ninja: No, they do want to talk about it-- they talk about it all the time. They just don't really make music about it. It's cool to make music about things around you.
Pitchfork: What about the girl in the video who has no nipples?
Ninja: Yeah, that girl was born with no nipples. She was at one of our shows and I was gonna sign her boobs and I was like, "You have no nipples. That's the most amazing thing ever. Do you wanna be in the video?"
Pitchfork: What are you guys up to next?
We're doing a short film in a few weeks time with Harmony Korine that will screen at the Rotterdam Film Festival this January. [Korine] wrote the script and we made it a little more Zef. It's come out fuckin' wild. It's a short film called Wat Kyk Jy-- which means "watcha lookin' at?"-- which I tattooed onto my penis as well.
Pitchfork: Did that hurt?
Ninja: Yeah, a little bit.
Pitchfork: Just a little bit?
Ninja: Yeah, I was quite sore. If you can imagine tattooing something with a little sewing needle. But it looks really cool.
Pitchfork: What song are you doing a video for next?
Ninja: We're shooting the "Rich Bitch" video in December. It'll drop probably around the New Year. It's like a super-pop video that I've been working on for a long time. We actually got signed [to Interscope] because of the "Rich Bitch" video idea; we told [Interscope chairman] Jimmy Iovine the idea and he was freaking out. It's like a hostile pop takeover video. Basically, "Enter the Ninja" is like us crawling out of the hole, "Evil Boy" was like sinking our roots in, and "Rich Bitch" is about the hostile pop takeover. It's like a new alien-breed form of pop.
Pitchfork: I'm excited to see it.
Ninja: Me too.
