Die Antwoord : Ten$ion

<img src="http://www.qromag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/dieantwoordtension.jpg" alt="Die Antwoord : Ten$ion" /><br /> <span>It's a shame that Die Antwoord is the group that Watkin Tudor Jones, Yolandi Visser and DJ Hi-Tek broke biggest with.</span>...
Die Antwoord : Ten$ion
5.5 Downtown
2012 

Die Antwoord : Ten$ion It’s a shame that Die Antwoord is the group that Watkin Tudor Jones, Yolandi Visser and DJ Hi-Tek broke biggest with.  You first got hooked on them when you heard “Enter the Ninja”, but their current antics are much more easily understood after listening to their previous incarnations like MaxNormal.tv and The Constructus Corporation (and if anyone has a copy of their graphic novel The Ziggurat, or knows where to buy it, please let us know…).

But getting back to the music, Yolandi clearly thrives on this album much more than Watkin, a.k.a. Ninja.  Ninja’s ironic ramblings are severely lacking throughout this record, and despite her best efforts, Yolandi can’t make up for it with her over the top boasts and high-pitched rapid-fire delivery.  She could mop the floor with Nicki Minaj if they ever crossed paths.  She owns tracks like “I Fink U Freeky”, “Fatty Boom Boom”, and “So What”, while Ninja fades to the background.

Throughout the album DJ Hi-Tek is just as brilliant as he always has been, genre hopping on a dime.  His repertoire of beats is inventive and always varied and it carries this album when the rapping slips.  Listen to “Fatty Boom Boom” through the skit that follows the track and onto “So What” to hear him slip from one style to another effortlessly and never lose the group’s overall groove.

$O$ is a better album than Ten$ion, and certainly the one you should buy if you had to choose, but Ten$ion is worth owning if only as a memento of another step in the journey of this collective from South Africa.  It will likely end up being an album only for completists.

It’s unlikely that Die Antwoord can outdo the brilliance of MaxNormal.tv’s “Tik Tik Tik” (despite the excellent effort of “Enter the Ninja”) which makes it seem like it might be time for Watkin, Yolandi and Hi-Tek to turn the page again and move on to their next adventure, whether under the Die Antwoord label or another.  It really doesn’t matter what name they go by, as long as they keep making music in some form.

MP3 Stream: “Fatty Boom Boom

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