I Just Saw God and/or Die Antwoord

For the unintiated, please view the above. The initiated could probably do with watching this fokken masterpiece again, anyway.

So, Die Antwoord were live in my town and I was really conflicted. This was, after all, an unabashed product of gross internet hype, a flash-in-the-pan bit of (shudder) comedy rap tarted up with some vaguely international cred. Culture tourism with rave beats. Comedy rap. Performance art intellectuals masquerading as sub-working-class South African slum dwellers. Afrikaans Ali G's. Did I mention comedy rap?

But the album was amazing and the videos were better, and the kind of people who sit on the internet wringing their (virtual) hands over "authenticity" are the lowest kind of scum, so I kind of wanted to go.

But years as a hip-hop fan have taught me one thing: rap shows fucking suck. Basically, if the performer is emotionally invested in their craft at all, you get some dude yelling at you while jumping up and down for an hour. If he's not invested, you get his weed carriers yelling at you while NOT jumping up and down. For twenty minutes. When the greatest live example of your genre is the Anti-Pop Consortium, you are in BIG FUCKING TROUBLE.

So I waffled. I thought about Cage, and how he sucked. I thought about Ghostface and how he sucked (yes, I'm white... how could you tell?). I thought about Mr. Lif and how even though he kind of ruled, he also pretty much sucked. But then I watched Die Antwoord's videos, and I wondered... is there any chance at all that I'm going to get this level of awesome? Is there any chance at all that this show will be a rave-rap black mass complete with hooded robes that have alien faces and horns on the hoods of said hooded robes? Can any simple stage show contain the Keith Haring Boner Party that is Die Antwoord's mis en scene? Will there be Prawn Hands?

So after much waffling, I paid my twenty bucks (more like conned my friend Bill into paying my twenty bucks, but I'll get him back later. IN THEORY.). I bought the ticket, I took the ride, as a wise man once said.

Alien face horn-hood? Check. Keith Haring Boner Party? Check. PRAWN HANDS?!?!?! CHECK!!!!

Also: Lesbian tit mouse-mask porn. Yolandi Vi$$er constantly threatening to display the lower half of her boobs but just not quite. Near-total Hipster Scum saturation. Epic five-minute intro of chanting monks droning while we stared at Leon Botha's face. "Portland, why are you so fokking cute?" Rave-rap tentacle sex armageddon. There were also two people jumping up and down and shouting at me, but since one was a four-foot-tall sex bomb, I didn't mind so much. Easily the best twenty dollars I almost spent.

Did I mention the mouse-mask porn? Fuck, I can't wait for the album to drop... and the album after that, etc.