Die Antwoord and a delegitimised South African whiteness: a potential counter-narrative?

Abstract

This article explores the potential for the ostensibly marginal discourse of Afrikaans zef rap rave, as performed by Die Antwoord, to present a meaningful ‘counter-narrative of nation’ (Bhabha 1994: 300) within a South African context in which ‘being “white” is replete with dissonance’ (Steyn 2004: 122). Die Antwoord is an Afrikaans zef-rap-rave band who are ‘taking over the interweb’ and have garnered a fair-sized fan-base both on the Internet and through live gigs. The band's image is ‘zef’ or ‘common’, making use of an amalgamation of ‘white trash’ and ‘Cape coloured gangster’ signifiers. This, however, is a carefully crafted appropriation of a particular mix of marginalised South African identities and, as such, offers fruitful material for analysis. In order to explore whether Die Antwoord does in fact suggest new narrative strategies that are able to simultaneously construct, resist, maintain and challenge dominant discourses of white identity in South Africa, this article attempts, first, to briefly situate Die Antwoord within a broader historical framework of alternative music production, and second, to examine the performance of the band from within the discourse of ‘critical whiteness studies’. Finally, the performance and lyrics of Die Antwoord are explored in light of the strategies of irony and the carnivalesque, in order to suggest whether they do in fact offer a ‘counter-narrative of nation’ or if they merely reinforce dominant discourses of white South African identity.