Die Antwoord canceled their North American “House of Zef” Tour less than 2 weeks before the first date was meant to kick off while they had fully known that they would be pulling this stunt on their remaining, unsuspecting fans for at least a month prior to announcing it. The way they announced it? Via an unlisted video on their YouTube channel which they have subsequently deleted. Don’t worry, we re-uploaded it:

Their reasons basically come down to “they are busy with”:
New music videos for the new album;
a documentary they’re making with Roger Ballen;
a feature film they’ve been working on for very long and the sound track to said feature film which apparently will drop in January 2020.
Furthermore they wanted the USA to hear and see and experience all this new shit first.
Honestly, it sounds like a crappy, drawn out infomercial. It even comes complete with the “but wait, there’s more!”-hook: the special fans who are dumb enough to buy VIP tickets will score weed at their shows (conditions apply), despite the fact that weed is probably still illegal throughout most parts of the US. Die Antwoord are in other words writing cheques which they can’t cash and they are honesty beginning to sound like Fyre Fest 2.0 organizers. Because the video was hidden as unlisted on the back pages of Die Antwoord’s website, some fans had to find out about the US cancellations the hard way. Here is one example from a YouTube comment:
“Just walked up to the NOLA show venue and saw the canceled sign on the window. Flew out to Louisiana for noooo reason.”

So before we go through Edwin’s latest video, lets have a look at some of their excuses:

New music videos for the new album
This is probably true because this is typically what Die Antwoord does to create hype around a new tour. It is a stock standard trademark of theirs. They blow a shitload of money doing a version or a few versions of their music videos which they at first don’t like. Then they fire people from the project or people drop off out of their own volition because it is impossible to work with Njnja. Then Die Antwoord finally bring out a video which they are happy with and they go on tour, because the video brings them hype for the tour and helps sell tickets. You can figure this one out for yourself – go look at the major music videos from the past and check which tours followed it.

Die Antwoord documentary with Roger Ballen
This could also be true, but it would be very foolish of Roger Ballen to continue to be involved with Die Antwoord at this stage. I’m pretty sure he has a very good idea of what has transpired in the news. He is currently busy building The Roger Ballen Centre for Photographic Arts in 48 Jan Smuts avenue in Johannesburg which opens in 2020. He will be either too busy or wouldn’t want to attract the wrong kind of attention or publicity for his new business. There are more than likely investors and and other big names attached to this project. It is not like Roger Ballen can use Die Antwoord for any promotional purposes in Johannesburg for his new centre, because Ninja and Yo-Landi have close to zero influence in South Africa. They don’t have a fan base in their own home country, because of their behavior. Maybe go ask mr Ballen yourself?

The feature film and soundtrack
Since 2010, Ninja has had this idea in his head to make a feature film called South African Ninja. It has gone through many phases and changes and re-writes and I’m pretty sure he has pitched it to every single person high up enough during the filming of Chappie back in 2013. It will be interesting to see if this movie really does see the light in January, 2020, because old habits die hard – If my guesses are right, many people will be (or have been) fired because of Ninja’s erratic, abusive and and controlling behavior. Dune who started working on Zef TV is a good example – he fucked off only after 2 episodes aired on YouTube. Then the new guy, in true Ninja-directed infantile fashion, said the previous guy had the shits.

And just to get back to Chappie, an actual movie which got released in theaters – find me two people (besides Yo-Landi and Ninja) from the 150-cast and crew from that film set who were happy with their conduct.  Old habits DieHard. Die Harder 4…

But-but… they keep themselves very busy with Zef TV?
From the tone of the leaked and publicly available Sony emails, Zef TV was supposed to be the building blocks for this bigger movie, but it fucked out, because now Zef TV has taken on the form of their last few remaining ‘friends’ (the likes of Lill2Hood and Qgwa) hanging around and making little explainer and damage control videos on location at their rented house in Higovale to rile up their fans. Ninja explaining to Lil2Hood  the way in which their ‘haters’ operate, is cringe worthy – not only because Ninja is acting like a 45-year old edgy teenager, but also because Lil2Hood is still hanging out with them. She is like the band who played until the Titanic disappeared below the water’s surface, but for dumb reasons in stead of honorable reasons. She will be there until the very last dollar, I guess. Even Yo-Landi’s friend, Kim Posibill (Roberts) seems to have bailed (temporary) already – she was all big mouth and insulting with her almost 5000 Facebook ‘friends’ over the last three years but it seems the wannabe gangster has now closed her once very public Facebook account and disappeared after she got mentioned only once on Edwin Costa’s  #GenerationRetard, as Ninja calls it: the episode of Zef TV is entitled Episode 5: You Said Anus #GenerationRetard – it is a veiled reference to Edwin’s Generation’s coverage of Die Antwoord:

See? Telling little meaningless anecdotes to whoever of Qgwa or Little2Hood is on hand to be on camera and react with admiration so that the admiration can be transferred onto the remaining Die Antwoord fans who are still sitting at their feet, listening to their little stories. My favorite part was where Ninja, the self-proclaimed Buddhist vegan, talks about how he stuffs a chicken in to a glass milk bottle to make a chicken-in-a-milk-bottle-bomb. But hey, eating the meat is apparently worse…

So with all these excuses taken into consideration for the cancellation of the US tour, why did Die Antwoord not cancel their gig in Brussels on the 25th of November, 2019? I mean, if they’re so busy, why spend all that time, money and energy to attend just one gig in the entire Europe? That’s three days fucked if you include a hectic travel schedule. Why make it part of the 2020 tour on the website? Maybe they count on Belgians not understanding the news or not reacting the same way the people in the States did? Or do Ninja and Yo-Landi need some pocket money for Christmas? Or some money to put into the South African Ninja movie?

Or maybe this is the reason for not cancelling Belgium:
From the venue’s description on Facebook:
“To celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the Ancienne Belgique, the legendary concert hall joins forces with art centre CENTRALE for contemporary art for the very first time. The two Brussels organisations welcome two figureheads of the universes of music and art: band Die Antwoord and photographer Roger Ballen, both based in South Africa”

Maybe Roger Ballen is stuck with them. I hope they split the remaining cash after expenses for this one gig between themselves and mister Ballen in a fair way. Building centres and making movies ain’t cheap…

Here is Edwin’s take on things:

Edwin has indicated in his video that he is taking a break from this whole Die Antwoord soapie until somewhere in October, probably November. There is still a lot to cover which I will get to in due course, as some people have reached out and sent more interesting stuff may way.
For past articles about Die Antwoord, follow this link.