‘She's lost control again’: representations of (dis)ability in contemporary performances of Spoek Mathambo and Die Antwoord

Abstract

This article compares the representation of disability in the performances of Spoek Mathambo and Die Antwoord, two contemporary South African musical artists. Both artists appropriate disability for their own purposes. However, I argue that Die Antwoord uses the economy of repulsion and desire that surround certain conceptions of disability to add credibility to their supposed marginalization as white South Africans in a post-apartheid nation. Spoek Mathambo, on the other hand, uses discourses of disability to think through the effects of violence on the body, as well as to demonstrate the esthetic similarities between epilepsy, spirit possession, and mediumship. I conclude with the centrality of vulnerability in formulations of subjectivity.

Keywords:

• Disability
• South Africa
• enfreakment
• Spoek Mathambo

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The television show takes place in a single sex hostel, built by the apartheid government to house those whose temporary labour was considered disposable, such as men working in and around the mining industry as well as cleaners and factory workers, for example. Insightful and funny, the show explores black masculinity, mobility, labour, and sexuality.

2. Kwaito supposedly originated when two house DJs in Johannesburg, Oskido and Christos, slowed down house and other records to around 110 beats per minute, putting their own lyrics to it, using tsotsitaal initially to articulate their new freedoms. Today some argue that kwaito is in decline as producers revamp it to produce a clipped sound at 125 bpm that house DJs can use in their sets. Recent successes however that include the underground hit by Okmalumkoolkat with a London act LV and the occurrence of ‘morning bangs’ (‘banging’ means being high on ecstasy) argue that kwaito, while changing, is still relevant.

3. Coetzer claims to be able to attest to Die Antwoord's artistic integrity because ‘Ninja and Yo-Landi are close friends of mine and our seven-year-old daughters are best buddies’.

4. A case in point: though the numerous tattoos on Ninja's body consciously mimic the prison-gang tattoos in their hand-drawn quality and their location on the body, their allusion to prison tattoos works ‘connotatively without actually making denotative connections. The band does not refer directly but alludes to the numbers gangs, the 26s and 28s, via tattoos and graffiti that [often] appears in the background of their set’ (Haupt 2012, 122).

5. In an online interview, Hugo (2008) states that pre-1994, ‘All black and white, good guys and bad guys. Those lines are not as distinct as they were before. Those good guys are now bad, etc … . Things are more complex’. He echoes the discomfort that Die Antwoord articulate with post-apartheid notions of whiteness.

6. The now outdated catch-phrase ‘Simunye’ means ‘we are one’. First used by politicians, it was later used by advertising companies to promote a TV channel in the 1990s. Ninja repeated this line in his defence of ‘Fok Julle Naaiers’.

7. This scene could also be reference to water torture. While the similarities are there, I see the dunking of the head also as religious based on how quickly the boy's head is raised out of the bucket. He is not held under the water for more than a few seconds and his face appears calm and ready, as do the faces of the boys watching.