Max Normal

It's late at night. And I've literally been listening to Max Normal over and over again for hours. So I'm just going to put a handful of songs that you should check out. I am sleep deprived, just thought I should let you know.

Tik Tik Tik
Yes, I have mentioned this in another post. Don't care. This song is brilliant. It's mostly Yolandi. And the song is about two options, a single decision. The first verse is about how hard Yolandi's life is, the second is about a man who convinces her to sell drugs and her life spirals down, she asks to rewind. Then the next verse is like a rewind in time and she's faced with the drug dealer again and chooses to ignore him and collaborate with Max Normal instead. Fucking brilliant.
"Diamonds are created from extreme pressure"


Whenever You Ready

I love how soft and mellow this is, I wouldn't expect it to come from the same person who made Fok Julle Naaiers.

The Organ Grinder

This is probably my favorite song at the moment from Ninja/Max Normal/Waddy Jones etc. The creepy vibes are so perfect for this month, I love this so much I can't even. It's so easy when the chorus hits to just imagine some monster that haunts children.

Ripples In The Mesh

People have said that I like a lot of 'stoner' music. After enjoying this twenty seven minute story, I understood what they meant. I love Yolandi's little rap about her character Anica who wants to be an a rapper too. So creepy, so good. Shit goddamn. It's an entire story, and it makes me appreciate Yolandi and Max Normal/Ninja/Waddy Jones' acting skills. Which is something I never even thought about until now. 

Punch My Teeth Out

When I listen to shit like this constantly, I get a little angry that Max Normal didn't blow the fuck up when it did. This song is fucking amazing! I guess the timing and publicity was off for them, but oh my god please listen to this. 

Rap Fantasy

This is brilliant. I love the intro with Yolandi's incredibly strong accent, and the beat is so different, just because of the little clicking noises through out the song. And the chorus is so--I don't like using this word but--epic! I love singing it as loud as I can when I'm driving and I feel like a super hero or an eighties rock star.

Rap Made Easy
I have never heard a song like this. Literally 'teaching' you how to rap. It's genius! To quote one of the top comments of this video from Youtube user Joe Brennan: "wow, I always love Die Antwoord, but in a weird kind of way, but after discovering Max Normal, I kind of realize the genius behind it...I think everyone who is not sure (about) where they stand on Die Antwoord needs to hear all their stuff and they will be able to understand it easier." Very well put. Listening to Max Normal definitely fulfilled my Die Antwoord cravings after I thought I had heard everything from them. And I appreciate them, like, a thousand times more than before.

Too Cold To Hold

This was the first song that I heard from Max Normal and it's probably still on my top five favorites from them. My favorite lyrics are "Tomorrow/ I think I'll hang out with myself again/ Maybe even sport someone else's skin/ So if you hear some other cat kickin' my rhymes/ Just remember that his intestines might just be mine/ Cause anyone of these 6 billion civilians could very well be this reptilian/ No matter how resilient or brilliant you think you are/ If I decide that I need a new host/ Somebody's pretty little shell's gonna get a new ghost."
Do you realize how amazing that is?! I love his whole "documentary fiction" and his belief and ability to just regenerate (Doctor Who reference) completely and this is some creepy fore telling of Ninja.

The Answer: Die Antwoord

In late 2011/early 2012 I found a video that filled me with disgust, curiosity, and amazement. The video was I Fink You Freeky by Die Antwoord. It was filled with dirty, unusual, scowling faces, crude drawings on the walls and clothing of the artists. It was dark, scary, and creepy. The music was a heavy techno beat throughout the whole song until the second verse where it slowly builds up and the beat drops like a dubstep song would. The artists were rapping in both English and Afrikaans, and it was hard to tell which was which at some points. I loved it. I watched it over hundreds of times, showed all my friends. It soon became the go-to song we would all play when we got together. Listening to I Fink You Freeky now just reminds me of the late nights in the parking lot with my friends, or driving a hundred miles an hour down an empty suburban street with the windows down.

Ninja

Die Antwoord is made up of the rap duo Ninja and Yolandi Vi$$er. I think what drew me to them was not only their amazing music, but all the question that I had about them: How old is Yolandi? Who is Ninja? Are they married? Related? Where are they from? WHAT! They have a daughter together?! The list honestly went on forever. The more I researched them, the more I respected them and their music. I love performers that take on characters to the point where they don't even know where their personal self begins and their character ends. Ninja described what he does once as "documentary fiction" and he believes that he can bend his own reality however he wants. The two both are tatted with Die Antwoord album names, their own lyrics, and little pictures that symbolize their songs (like Evil Boy-a cartoon of a little boy holding a HUGE penis, based off of the song Evil Boy and the toys that they sell). I don't know, I just admire the dedication. They are basically living art.
One of the first videos that I watched was called Zef Side, a short video that introduces Ninja, Yolandi, and DJ Hi-tek. It's odd that the actor/DJ/performer always changes but they always introduce him as DJ Hi-tek. Their reasoning is that he's actually very shy and has a speech impediment, but its very obvious that its just an imaginary faceless character which I like a whole lot better. They really play on the 'foreign' style. They introduce South African slang like zef (South African swag basically), or chappies (prison tattoos one does to themselves). They are seen hanging out in a poor neighborhood, explaining how Dj Hi-Tek "has a PC computer" and put their music "all up on da interwebz" with their heavy South African accents.

Yolandi Visser in the Max Normal Days

After listening to almost every Die Antwoord song, I found myself clicking on related youtube videos from their former project Max Normal TV. It's amazing to see the difference between Max Normal and Ninja, but I found myself picking up reused lyrics and beats like "I don't like the drugs, but the drugs sure like me!" in the Die Antwoord song So What (which is fucking amazing) was actually taken from the chorus of the Max Normal song Tik Tik Tik (which is also fucking amazing). Die Antwoord is definitely has a more appealing mainstream beat-and much more graphic lyrics-whereas Max Normal TV was about being on an enlightened level of originality. The phrase 'be a creator, not a parasite' is one of the main ideas of Max Normal TV. Seriously just go watch this documentary about his career, it'll make you appreciate him so much.
If you go back even further you can find out that Ninja also went by his real name Watkin "Waddy" Tudor Jones and made not only rap music but, like, seriously beautiful soft shit. Like Moon Love, which features their daughter Sixteen. Or this smooth jazz-ish song Shaboom. Seriously this man has had like nine lives and rocked every single one of them.
These days, however, they have blown UP. Now they do collaborations with Alexander Wang, Versace has taken a liking to Yolandi's haircut, they had an ongoing 'feud' with Lady Gaga that ended with a drag queen getting dress in her infamous meat dress getting eaten by a lion in the Fatty Boom Boom music video, collaborating with artist Roger Ballen, and even doing a short film with Harmony Korine (directed Spring Breakers).
PLAYLIST GO LISTEN HERE YOU GO YUP