'The Meaning of Zef' by Ross Truscott

In early February 2010, US-based website, Boing Boing, featured South African "zef rap-rave" group, Die Antwoord, on their site. Within days the group had over a million views of their music videos on YouTube, their Facebook fan-bases swelled, and their own website crashed with all the extra online traffic. There are now talks of big record deals and world tours. And comparisons with District 9. But far more interesting than their instant international fame was the fierce debate that ensued on countless internet forums over what Die Antwoord are about, over what - precisely - zef means.

It was entertaining stuff reading some of the imaginative and rather silly conclusions that some people reached, removed as they were from a South African context - one person asserted that the music was sung in Afrikaans, the same language the aliens spoke in District 9.

Although there is no clear definition, zef is generally associated with poor, or at least common, white Afrikaner culture, with a flair for white-trash antics (although it also implies at least a minimal display of ironic distancing from itself). Well, that seems pretty straight forward.

The name, as academic Albert Grundlingh has pointed out, comes from the Ford Zephyr, a model that preceded the Cortina and was popular in brandy-and-coke brandishing communities during apartheid. The website, Wat Kyk Jy, boasts a zef dictionary which, although it does not define zef, is in itself a kind of elaborate definition. Providing visitors with lists upon lists of cruder Afrikaans words and figures of speech for fighting, sex, masturbation, friends, and drinking, it offers up a vividly loose idea of zefness.

Amongst the debates that have raged over Die Antwoord, the most affectively charged have revolved around the real status of the group's racial and ethnic identity.

Are they actually white working-class Afrikaners? Are they English-speaking South Africans pretending to be Afrikaners pretending to be coloured from the Cape Flats? And so on.

While it is possible to establish a few basic facts on this score - for starters, that it is Waddy and Yolandi from Max Normal TV; that it is, without question, parody - the rest is open for interpretation.

Other commentators who concede the parodic status of the act have asked whether it is alright to make fun of a poor, under-educated, marginalised group, even if it is one that is typically racist and clings to old political ideals. I have some thoughts of my own here, which I will provide in an over-thought, and complicated psychoanalytic account of zef in my doctoral dissertation, but I'll keep these postulations to myself for a while longer.

In the meantime, google Die Antwoord. Their music videos are seriously seamless and, frankly, very funny, and their music is a fascinating patchwork of appropriations, including the 'Body Beat' theme tune for the chorus of the song, 'Zef Side'.

In any case, as Ninja says in an interview on YouTube, what zef means is "pretty self speaking."

For more on Die Antwoord and images of the group by Sean Meterlerkamp (as seen above), visit their Facebook profile. Also, for some more on 'zef cool' visit David Smith's debate in "Is Afrikaans cooler as Engels" for the M&G.

“Dude, BLK JKS are, like, super good” by Ross Truscott

Hailing from the East Rand and Soweto, BLK JKS - Lindani Buthelezi (vocals and guitar), Mpumi Mcata (guitar), Molefi Makananise (bass) and Tshepan Ramoba (drums) - were the musical sensation of 2009. Mail & Guardian writer, Lloyd Gedye usually has his finger on the pulse of South African music and, last year, he called the BLK JKS debut album, After Robots, "probably the most important SA album to have appeared in the past 20 years." That's a big call.
Turns out quite a few Big Name Music Magazines agree. So for anyone who had their head in the sand last year, BLK JKS are doing alright, crazy-international-fame-wise.

As it happens, they played in East London on Wednesday, the 17th of February 2010.

Anyway, it was "pretty much totally sick, dude."
Wow, guy, awesomeness.
"But then, like this reporter from The Daily Dispatch* totally wrote a shitty article about it the next day, and like so tore into the white ous that were there 'cos he reckoned they only came to check if black dudes can actually play rock."
Shees, what a hater, what a doosh. But do you think it might be true?
"Like, uh, ja of course it's true - the jorl was at Buccaneers. You know what Bucs is laak. Still, though, I wish the paper could of sent sent someone who actually had a set of ears; that band was bef*#ck, my bru."
So, what you're saying is that you also went to see if BLK JKS can make rock music and you reckon they can?
"Jussis, whatever, bru."
Sorry, man.
"Don't you also start with that kak now."

Admittedly, the crowd was a little on the pale side. But not that much. In fact, really not that much. Anyway, that completely misses the point, as the Dispatch reporter missed it. And unfortunately for him, while he was matching up skin shades with his Plascon colour-chart, he missed a show that was off the charts, so to speak.

Although the band has only recently gained the recognition and the record deal they deserve, they have been around fro some time, working hard (six years, according to Molefi Makananise). The hard work and the time they've had together shows, too. They may give the impression that they're free-wheeling and improvising through parts of their performance, but they're tight. Really tight. And they would need to pull together so many influences - blues, ska, dub, progressive rock, mbanqanga, psychedelic rock - to manage a sound so distinctive as theirs, so coherent; these influences are not hats worn during different songs, but threads that run through the fabric of their sound.

I had been digging After Robots for a few weeks before the show, so the live, expanded versions of some of their tracks were mind-blowing. 'Lakeside', for instance, even on the album, rides some other kind of rhythm section, one from an other-worldly beyond that the band restrains through the start of the song, with chilling vocals from Lindani Buthelezi - who, incidentally, seems to have a bit of a David Byrne-inspired stage presence going on - and then, once they have a firm enough grip on it, lean into the song and take it downhill, through some mesmerizing turns.
To see and hear this performed live, to witness its musical ascension, was pretty special. And the interaction between Makananise and Ramoba, on bass and drums respectively, is something to behold - particularly on some of the songs where they were less faithful to the album version.

'Molalatladi', the title of one of their songs, means 'rainbow'. Quite a bit has been made of this, both by the media and the band. But far from easy 'rainbowism', the band and their music are challenging. The backside of the album cover, for instance, has a photograph of an animal with a slit throat.
I asked Molefi about the photography, which seems an odd choice of image with which to market a sound.
"That's how life is. For a lot of people, that's as harsh as it is, man. Some people said we shouldn't use it, that it wouldn't help sales, but no, man, that's how it is."
As a friend said as their third song reached about the one-minute mark, "That's some seriously syncopated shit." But this is the beauty of their live performance, something that comes across less strongly on the album: their ability to begin with what seems like chaos, or at least a relatively formless mass of sound, with which they begin to sculpt their songs. And before you know it, there is the song you recognise from the album, alive, that chorus, that great hook. And then, once again, it's changing shape, shifting tempo.

They hardly need more praise, but if you haven't got the album or seen them live, you could do yourself a serious favour.
"BLK JKS are, like, kak good, my bru."

Many thanks to Cheryl and Themy from Nahoon Reef Productions for bringing BLK JKS to East London.

*If anyone is interested, the Dispatch article was by Lindile Sifile and can be accessed here.