Britta’s presentation on the
globalization of pop music and its dabbling in cultural appropriation was a
glimpse at a fascinating world where pop music can both complicate and obscure
marginal cultures. The discussion on the South African group ‘Die Antwoord’
particularly opened up a realm of fascinating questions on the nature of
critique, commercialization, and the ways in which this group manages to
carefully toe the line between the two, offering a complex body of work that
frequently refuses straightforward and one-sided readings.
The video clip we examined, for
instance, serves simultaneously as a publicity stunt for Die Antwoord’s fervent
fans (particularly in terms of its scandalous mockery of Lady Gaga) and a
deliberate manner of setting their work apart from the American pop mainstream.
Additionally, the video’s parody of
South African tourism serves as a powerful self-reflexive critique of
the exoticization of the country by foreigners seeking dramatic safaris and
‘authentic’ travel experiences. Nevertheless, one must question to what extent
the group remains marginal if they are recuperated into mainstream circulation
and have broken out of a strictly cult following to achieve worldwide renown. Which,
naturally, begs the question: to what extent does fame or international
recognition compromise critique, alternative points of view, and the expression
of marginal cultures?
Die Antwoord precisely addresses
this conundrum in its oscillation between boundaries: mainstream and
alternative, South African and global, male and female, white and black. It
plays with designations and categories in an unapologetically postmodern
manner, leaving no listener unfazed and no opportunity for shock and critique
(not necessarily always intersecting the two) unaccounted for. Their work does
not always further political statements, but neither does it solely rely on
alarming its audience with unexpected elements, and this is precisely why the
group serves as such a rich source for analysis and the dissection of the global
music industry.
Their music and aesthetic video
and fashion style draw mainly on Zef,
a South African counter-culture movement that privileges working class glamour.
Not unproblematically, Zef focuses mainly on white suburban working class
culture in South Africa, accentuating the renewed criticism that Die Antwoord’s
racial politics are iffy. However, Die Antwoord’s emphasis on appropriating
different musical and artistic influences in their memorable videos reminds us
of the manner in which music itself is a process of bricolage and
hybridization. As with the Brazilian tropicalist movement, this notion of a
cannibalistic culture that engulfs the multitude of (often clashing) influences
around it enables a new product that can productively work through a number of
cultural contradictions. Indeed, this type of music generates a creative space
where these intersections are brought into full view, often serving as a simultaneous
celebration of diversity and critique of the inequalities that inevitably mar such
a convoluted juncture. Thus, perhaps the globalization of music and the
culturally provocative work that Die Antwoord engages in can serve as a useful
jumping off point from which we can examine the ways in which art (and its commercialization)
can embrace a self-reflexive thematic and aesthetic hybridization that furthers
the process of foregrounding and exposing power structures.
