And Finally Artist News Beef Of The Week

CMU Beef Of The Week #318: Die Antwoord v Suicide Squad

By Andy Malt | Published on Friday 12 August 2016

As if having his new film universally panned by critics isn’t enough, ‘Suicide Squad’ director David Ayer now has to contend with the wrath of Die Antwoord. Which might smart a bit more because he is – according to the rap duo – a big fan. I guess he’ll just have to console himself with the knowledge that the movie has already made back $120 million over its budget. I’m sure it’ll be tough for him.

This week, Die Antwoord’s Yolandi Visser posted a video on Instagram, comparing her own look against the ‘Suicide Squad’ character of Harley Quinn and her partner Ninja against that of The Joker. Writing below the video she said that these similarities were too stark to be coincidence. What’s more, she claims, Cara Delevingne and Jared Leto, who played the characters, said that Ayer had been talking up his love of Die Antwoord on set, and also phoned Ninja before the movie came out “pretending to be down”.

As well as of the more obvious similarities, she adds that Ayer “nibbled” various other “tiny details … that other people won’t see but we notice”. And if anything is to come out of all this, I would like it to be that people use “nibbled” to mean they’ve been ripped off more often.

The duo were also invited to the film’s premiere, which Visser decided to boycott. Ninja did make the trip though, assuming that there had just been a ‘misunderstanding’. Seemingly the worst part of that, aside from realising that there had been no misunderstanding, was that the rapper then had to watch the whole “bullshit movie”. Something I’m sure many of us can sympathise with.

“You should start a crew called ‘I’m a fake fuck'”, she suggests. “Ask Kanye if he wants to join you”.

Yeah, that was the other falling out Die Antwoord had recently. In a video posted on YouTube in May, Ninja describes being invited to West’s house to work on ideas for music.

“I had this idea for a track and, as I’m about to say the shit about the track, Kanye just like turns away and switches on a fucking, like, an ass sex video”, says the rapper. “And then Kanye says, ‘Why is this guy putting his whole hand in her ass with his dick?’ And then he turned back to me and said, ‘Yo, sorry, what were you saying?’ And as I’m about to start talking about the track again, Kanye says, ‘Do you like banana pudding?'”

This was, says Ninja, actual banana pudding and not a weird euphemism. He also admits that it was actually “quite nice”, but afterwards he felt weird and blocked Kanye’s number. Clearly it had a deep effect on both of them, whether it actually happened or not. It’s hard to tell what’s real in a story that features both Die Antwoord and Kanye West, isn’t it?

You know who’s solid and dependable though? Paul McCartney. You know where you are with Macca, don’t you? In a new interview with Rolling Stone he likens West’s creative process to that of Andy Warhol, with various people working on bits of music that he picks and chooses from. A riff that McCartney whistled as part of a story he was telling “went into the pool of ingredients” and ended up being worked into ‘All Day’.

While Die Antwoord used some fairly negative adjectives in their video discussing West, Rolling Stone came straight out and asked McCartney if Kanye is a genius. “I don’t throw that word around”, the former Beatle laughed. “I think he’s a great artist”.

Is that a clear enough answer? I’m not sure. Anyway, I think the point of all this, before I got sidetracked, was that ‘Suicide Squad’ is shit.