Freak icon and punk princess Yolandi Visser is best known for her crazy Die Antwoord videos in which she stars with her Ninja partner, Watkin Tudor Jones.

Childhood

Anri du Toit was born on December 1, 1984 in South Africa. The singer grew up in Port Alfred in a foster family, she did not know her biological parents. Despite the light skin color, Anri has African roots, the artist herself believes that her mother was white and her father was African.

Adoptive father Anri was a priest of the local Catholic parish and foster parents raised the girl in accordance with the canons of Christian education. In an interview, the singer says that since childhood she hated the bourgeois atmosphere of white families in the small Port Alfred, but she always speaks warmly of her parents. Her mother and father did not refuse anything to Anri, and her passion for music was not taken seriously, hoping that her daughter would outgrow her teenage rebellious period.

In 2000, the family moved to Pretoria. At the new school, Anri met guys who, like her, were fond of music. Du Toit’s musical style was influenced by PJ Harvi and Bjork, but in the era of the triumphant advance of hip-hop culture, she became a fan of rap music. Both she and her classmates liked the first experiment with overlaying Anri’s voice on the beat, the recording produced a strange effect with a combination of a thin, almost childish, voice timbre and aggressive intonation.

After graduating from school, in 2003, du Toit went to Cape Town, where, as the singer’s parents believed, she would continue her education, and then be able to find a decent job. The girl was nineteen years old and she already knew that her life would be connected with music.

Creative career. Start

Anri’s chance acquaintance with Waddy, that’s what Watkin Tudor Jones called himself, became fateful both for the young singer and for Jones, who, by his thirty years, was still in a creative search. One of his projects was “The Constructus Corporation”, where he invited Anri to work as a sound mixing assistant. At the end of 2003, the ambitious project ceased to exist, and Anri and Jones began to work as DJs in Cape Town clubs.

Another brainchild of Jones, born in 2005, was called “Max Normal. TV”. It was planned that the multimedia project would produce short films, as well as create musical accompaniment for computer games and record their own songs and video clips for them. Waddy and company were developing promotions and trying to release soft toys. In addition to Anri, who had already chosen the pseudonym Yolanda Visser (Yolandi Visser), which referred to her African roots, Neon Don and Justin de Nóbrega also worked in the team.

In 2007, Good Morning South Africa was released. The album was not successful, but laid the foundation for the formation of the unique style of Jones’ future project, which was destined to reveal the names of musicians to the whole world.

Die Antwoord

The very first album of the duo Yolanda and Jones, acting under the pseudonym Ninja, posted in the public domain on the group’s website, became a sensation. Famous rap musicians Isaac Mutant, Scallywag and Jack Parow took part in the recording of “$O$”, the duties of the producer, director and DJ were performed by the third member of the group DJ Hi-Tek.

The bet made by the musicians on the contrast of external data and voices, the combination of melody and recitative, as well as ethnic inclusions against the backdrop of chronic protest, generously seasoned with sex and demons, was calculated with pinpoint accuracy and soon brought huge dividends. Not the last role was played by the appearance in the video of people with a non-standard appearance, suffering from various diseases or having an appearance far from the propagandized perfection. Society, tired of the standards of beauty and lifestyle imposed by glossy magazines, adequately perceived the appearance of Yolanda and Jones, according to one of the editors of Rolling Stone, because someone, after all, had to say it.

Already in the first year, the style of the musicians became inseparable from the ZEF movement, which they themselves created, characterized by the rejection of material wealth. “Become a ZEF, be poor, be cool and sexy,” in 2009 alone, millions of garments with this inscription were sold in South Africa. In the same year, Die Antwoord signed a contract with the record label Interscop Records, with which they collaborated until 2012, releasing two EPs.

2012 brought the musician a break with the Interscop Records bosses, who tried to insist on softening the style in order to attract a larger audience. Left without producer support, the musicians founded ZEF Records, and, having received help from the Japanese GS Company, released their second album Ten$ion and held a large-scale European tour.

From 2013 to 2018, the musicians released three more albums, according to critics, the uniqueness of Die Antwoord is that rap-punks managed to keep the style component without losing public interest.

A robot named Chappie

In 2015, Yolandi co-starred in Neil Blomkamp’s fantasy action film, which also featured Jones. It was decided not to give other names to the musicians’ characters, and in the film they played characters with their own names, endowing them with their own character traits. Yolandi appears more human than the fans seemed in the clips, her performance did not leave anyone indifferent, and at the premiere, many even cried when her heroine died. The film stars Hugh Jackman, Anderson Cooper and Dev Patel, as well as Hollywood diva Sigourney Weaver.

Interestingly, in 2010, Yolandi was invited to play the role of Elizabeth in the detective thriller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but the actress was not interested in the project and Numi Rapace played the role of the young rebel.

Personal life

Yolandi’s relationship with Jones, as the duo’s fans would have guessed, was never limited to a creative union. Since 2004, the musicians began to live together, and 2 years later their daughter Sistine was born. In honor of such an event, Jones got a tattoo on his face – the number 16.

In 2010, their family became larger, and the world became happier for one boy who found a loving family. Yolandi and Jones adopted Tokki, a street kid who was begging on the streets of Cape Town.

Rumors that the musicians have divorced, which are widespread among the fan community, are not commented on by the musicians, however, on Instagram, the artist often publishes photos in which she is depicted with Jones, with her daughter and son. The children of musicians are especially delighted with the millionth army of subscribers. Tokki began to look like his parents over time, and Sistine and Yolandi wear the same hairstyles and their short bangs have not gone out of fashion since 2016. Yolandi Visser: biography, personal life, photo

Yolandi Visser now

The life of a rap-rave star is closely connected with Die Antwoord, Yolandi tours a lot, in the summer of 2018 the musicians visited Moscow and gave a concert in Georgia. Announced back in 2017, the film dedicated to the work of the group, according to the singer, is under production, she does not announce the release date of the tape. At the end of 2018, a book of poems by Yolandi with her own illustrations was released in South Africa, the book was also published in Britain and other EU countries.

Cover photo source: Yolandi’s Instagram.