Die Antwoord – Baby's On Fire
2012 · Directed by Ninja & Terence Neale
2.3M Likes
Best comments
1.“This is clickbait – there are no babies on fire.”
More comments
- 2.“Finally, some good Christian music.”
- 3.“I'm a generic white 48-year-old American with three kids and an office job, and God help me... I fucking love this band.”
The story
Die Antwoord are the South African rap-rave duo of Ninja and Yolandi Visser, and the whole act runs on zef: a loud, trashy, working-class Afrikaner style cranked until it glows. In late 2011 they walked away from Interscope over creative fights, started their own label, Zef Recordz, and put out Ten$ion in early 2012. Baby's On Fire is track nine.
The video dropped June 5, 2012, and it's that rare Die Antwoord clip with an actual plot. Ninja co-directed with South African director Terence Neale and plays the overprotective big brother who wants to wreck Yolandi's drag-racing boyfriend. Reviewers clocked a Lisa Frank-style mural of Yolandi (the credits name artist Ben Jay Crossman), a stash of giant gold chains, a babydoll that looks just like her, a fight that turns violent in an almost cartoonish way, and a car stunt Promonews said made the drifting in M.I.A.'s Bad Girls look ordinary.
Spin called it very pink and sorta NSFW, and seemed a little stunned that the story made sense. For this band, that counts as a plot twist. Alexis Zabe shot it, Zef Filmz made it with Egg Films, and the result is part family drama, part neon cartoon, all big brother energy.
