Die Antwoord calls Drake “a massive faggot”
Die Antwoord, under fire for their acting in the new film Chappie, are also making headlines for calling Canadian rapper Drake a gay slur.
The South African rap-rave group and Drake are currently sharing the stage in the Future Music Festival in Australia.
Just over a week ago, Die Antwoord’s Yolandi Visser took to Instagram to offer up her views on Drake’s set during the festival, proclaiming: “Fuk. Drake was kak.”
She also included a picture of the star, with the words “‘I’m a massive faggot’ – Drake”.
Possibly realising that she might face a backlash, Visser quickly deleted the post, but not before it was screen-grabbed.
It’s not the first time Die Antwoord have come under fire for using the anti-gay slur. In a 2012 YouTube video (watch below), Ninja justified including “faggot” in their single Fok Julle Naaiers.
He explained that fellow band-member DJ Hi-Tek is himself gay, and that “Hi-Tek says the word faggot doesn’t hold any power over him. Hi-Tek says faggot all the time because he’s like, kind of taken that word and made it his bitch.”
Yolandi Visser in Chappie
Ninja added: ” To be clear Die Antwoord are not homophobic … It comes across to us that some people from America are heavy sensitive about the use of certain words. But the thing is, what you need to understand is, we’re not from America. We’re from South Africa. And South African people aren’t so pumped up about these words.”
Visser and Ninja star in South African director Neill Blomkamp’s new film Chappie. The movie, which just opened in the number one spot in the US on what’s been described as a “slow weekend”, has not been critically well received.
The acting by the two stars has in particular come under fire. The Washington Post said that, “Ninja and Visser are really bad in the movie,” with the Los Angeles Times describing their performance as “painful.”
The Guardian’s Ben Child, however, wrote that “the musicians are so deeply embedded in their roles that they lend the movie a rare, hyperreal intensity.”
You can make up your own mind when the film opens in South Africa this Friday.
i wonder if the world would have accepted them using the k-word as readily as what they have the homophobic hate speech. sorry, wont be buying the antwoord soon or ever.
I’m a lesbian living in the United States and I don’t find the way they used the word ‘faggot’ offensive. Of course I’m not speaking for all members of the LGBTQ+ community, but to me the word has no meaning unless you give it meaning. Die Antwoord is popular because they try to piss people off, that’s just part of their persona. But they do that to prove a point, and I believe that their point is to prove that we as humans are all one. We need to get past these labels and trivial things such as race, culture, gender, and sexual orientation that separate us. We could have advanced so much further as a group if we stopped letting these things separate us. We are all humans and we all come from the same place (or Creator if that suits your beliefs) so why aren’t we all working together? I’ve done lots of research and I’ve come to the conclusion that that is what Ninji and Yolandi are trying to say.