Die Antwoord - Suck on This

Pitchfork 50

Suck on This is presented to us as a stopgap for Die Antwoord’s fourth studio album, We Have Candy. MC Ninja teases the record in an interlude where he mimics geek king Napoleon Dynamite, a cultural reference so dated and worn-out that 12 years have passed and it still feels too soon to revive it. It's a neat stand-in for the South African rap trio and troll merchants Die Antwoord themselves: They may have started this act with the intention of discomfiting us and making us think, but in 2016, they are merely wearisome.

Even though it’s hard to erase the shock rap-rave South African group’s rat-infested, toilet-sitting, loogie-hocking videos from your memory (we’ve tried), it has been two years since they released their last album, Donker Mag, so here’s a refresher: Ninja and Yolandi Vi$$er embrace “zef,” a philosophy that encourages intentional vulgarity. In doing so, they’ve created a body of work that at times can be engaging. Even now, it’s hard not to be riveted by 2010’s “Zef Side”—there’s that slow-mo of Ninja’s knock-kneed thrusts that send his flaccid penis flopping around in his Dark Side of the Moon shorts; there’s Yolandi’s severe mullet, her awkward dancing and alien-like visage. In the ensuing years, however, we’ve become inured to Twitter trolls and ALL CAP$ personalities. More often than not these days, Die Antwoord comes off as tired and trying way too hard.

In a 2012 interview about their sophomore album Ten$ion, Die Antwoord said their issues with Interscope stemmed from the label urging them to “be more generic.” This is an ironic claim, for it's precisely what plagues Suck on This, their first mixtape since being liberated from their contract. While the tape includes new material along with remixes of old songs, the whole thing sounds like a retread. Nothing here is as bad as Ninja’s nasally chorus on Ten$ion’s opening track “Never Le Nkemise 1” or the unlistenable Uncle Jimmy skit, but maybe “boring” is a worse criticism than “bad.”

Sure, there are moments here that you can imagine playing well to festival crowds: If you close your eyes during the drops on “Gucci Coochie,” you can practically see the rows of shirtless bros and underbutt-showing girls in the Sahara tent at Coachella losing their minds. The best production is on the slinky, simmering “Bum Bum,” but Ninja’s line, “Bed wet, legs spread, big mess everywhere” is such a profoundly gross visual that you will be lunging for the skip button.

When it’s all said and done, the remixes are the most interesting tracks on Suck on This and God (fka DJ Hi-Tek) especially squeezes some life out of Die Antwoord’s most popular songs. He pumps “I Fink You Freaky” full of steroids, bumping up Letterman’s favorite song to a vein-popping, eyes-bulging, steam-spouting cartoon. The last 45 seconds reach such berserk Road Runner-levels, you wonder if he’s making fun of electro trap. If so, he’s beating Ninja and Yolandi at their own game. At this point, it all—even the letter that accompanied Suck on This claiming they didn’t know what a mixtape was—feels too contrived to be enjoyable. Maybe We Have Candy will surprise us and swerve far left, but if not, Die Antwoord’s getting muted.