by DCist contributor Catherine McCarthy

Last winter, as South African rave-rap trio Die Antwoord’s fame grew exponentially (getting enough web traffic to crash their homepage), videos of vocalists Ninja and Yo-landi Vi$$er — otherwise known as Watkin Tudor Jones and Yolandi Visser — in their previous incarnations as rap personalities “surfaced” on the internet, “exposing” the group as what many deemed to be “South Africa’s Ali G.” But while British comedian Sasha Baron-Cohen was forced to retire his Ali G and Borat characters as they became ubiquitous and instantly recognizable — the punchlines were no longer possible when everyone was in on the joke — Jones and Visser are not pranking isolated targets to the delight of audiences. They are punking fans into thinking that Die Antwoord has always been like this: loud, crude, and undeniably enigmatic.

Wednesday night’s performance at 9:30 Club was all of these things. Jones and Visser have been working together as conceptual performance artists for the last decade, but it took the shock value attributed to Die Antwoord and their homemade videos for “Enter the Ninja” and “Zef Side” to bring them international recognition. And in the last six months, the group has incorporated these attributes into a carefully orchestrated live performance that allows for maximum visual — and visceral — impact.