Yo-Landi Visser

It took more than 19 hours for Die Antwoord, South Africa’s bonkers electro-rap collective, to travel from their homeland to Lollapalooza, but not even jetlag was going to stop emcees Ninja and Yo-Landi Vi$$er from fighting crime — or doling out alternate South African history lessons.

Every child comes into the world full of promise, and none more so than Chappie: he is gifted, special, a prodigy. Like any child, Chappie will come under the influence of his surroundings—some good, some bad—and he will rely on his heart and soul to find his way in the world and become his own man. But there's one thing that makes Chappie different from any one else: he is a robot.

The most suffocating is the awareness that nothing is happening. All the veins are drying without the blood running through them. I came to Barão Geraldo because things happen here. Here people love as much as dolls hang themselves and chicken are slaughtered to death. Would I still hang dolls and burn memories in the next 18 years? It astonishes me how less and less I do not care for things that are not my extension. Being my own destruction is the only way. Intimacy is a farewell. All I see is a lot water and all the colors are not enough. All forms of comunication are not enough for a lot of water.

Originally published as two parts, this documentary from Jimbo Stephens explores the projects of South African rapper and visual artist Watkin Tudor Jones Jr.

Big dreams, big blunts, big rims, and big guns. It's time to get gangsta gangsta. Ninja and Yo Landi are wheelchair-bound lovers and real gangstas. They live in the outskirts of civilization, they shoot guns for fun, smoke massive joints, and sleep in the woods. They don't have any bling to show for their gangsta cred, but the world deserves to know who they are. They're tramps, and their wheels are starting to fall off. Ninja become despondent over their vagabond existence, but Yo Landi won't let him give up. What ensues is straight up gangsta mayhem, the realist of the real, true gangsta shit.

Back in June, we invited South African rave-rap crew Die Antwoord to play their first show in New York City. They are one of our favorite bands and their performance that day was one of the most hectic, intense and amazing shows we had seen in a long time. While we were hanging out with them here, Ninja and Yo-Landi kept talking about a little monster called Tokoloshe, the most feared of all African demons. Ninja told us about how when he was growing up, his nanny would use a stack of bricks to raise her bed up, just to keep the Tokoloshe away at night. It turns out this is a fairly common practice among women in South Africa since this hairy, pot-bellied dwarf, unlike your typical Western boogiemonsters, is believed to have a penis the size of a horse’s and a penchant for sneaking into people’s bedrooms and raping them.

A warmhearted slice-of-life story showing viewers how important family reunions are, psychologically and emotionally. But also a satire of white privileged church going South African society and their normalization.