Today, South African rap duo Die Antwoord released the video for its song "Pitbull Terrier," from its upcoming album Donker Mag. Here are my initial impressions of the video and the song, after watching the video just once.
WARNING: This video is terrifying and very violent. Definitely NSFW.
1. I immediately notice that that running time for the video is 4:20, which I'm assuming is on purpose. Actually, do South Africans know what 420 means? Or is that just an American thing?
2. This make-up is incredible, and absolutely horrifying. I'm definitely going to be seeing that pitbull-man's face when I go to bed tonight.
3. Yolandi Visser definitely has a Wes Borland (guitarist of Limp Bizkit) thing going on, with her black eyes and pale skin.
WARNING: Limp Bizkit is offensively bad.
4. Wouldn't it be funny if they actually got Pitbull to play that bald guy? I mean, he's already bald.
5. Wow, this is brutal, and way scarier than any horror movie that's come out in the last ten years or so. Practical effects will always be better than CGI.
6. If this is what Cape Town (or even all of South Africa) is like, I don't think I ever want to go there.
7. Yolandi seems to me like the Flavor Flav of Die Antwoord, with Ninja being Chuck D, doing most of the work, while she interjects every once in a while. That's what I gather from the couple of songs I've heard from them, anyway.
8. Yolandi's vocals barely sound human, like they're not even coming from a person's mouth. Not to diminish her talents, but I'm pretty sure you can just create her voice with ProTools or Garageband and it would be pretty much the same. I suppose that's her appeal, though. Her verse is my favorite part of the song, actually.
9. If you had the ability to bring people and animals back from the dead, why on Earth would you choose to resurrect this horrific pitbull-man thing?
10. Never mind, this wasn't so much a resurrection as it was a restoration. Apparently Ninja is some sort of werepitbull, though he apparently doesn't transform under a full moon, since it's broad daylight.
11. Ninja looks an awful lot like Joe Strummer. I'm not saying that Joe Strummer faked his death, moved to South Africa, and started Die Antwoord with his new tiny elf-wife, but I'm not saying that it's impossible, either.
12. I love how musicians can do end credits on their videos now, since they don't ever get played on TV anymore (not that this video would have ever been played on TV anyway). I also love how the credits to this video are written in a super-blocky, barely readably font.
13. There wasn't really so much rapping in this song as there was snarling and barking.
14. Based on this video and the short film they made with Harmony Korine a few years ago, I think I enjoy Die Antwoord's video work more than their actual music.
