(Waktin Tudor Jones of Die Antwoord & Zheani Sparkes)
Written by Roy Oro
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Australian musician Zheani has dropped her highly anticipated project “The Line”. Dynamic and emotive; this is her greatest cohesive body of work to date. Alongside the music she has released a ‘visualizer’ which is her mostly naked in highly provocative poses. Her sexuality is projected on top of a backdrop of a self reflective, sometimes sad and often angry sound-track.
But what’s most notable about this project is the closing track: “The Question”.
The comment sections on Zheani’s and Die Antwoord’s Instagram accounts got us to look into this more. A Reddit post was also made at some point but was later deleted.
Please note: None of these claims have been verified and we make no claims as to the lyrics’ authenticity. This has been blowing up the comment sections all around social media and we want to explore why that may be.
What happened between Zheani & Die Antwoord?! She clearly names Ninja and Yolandi which are, in fact, the names of the South African Hip Hop group. She also mentions “16” which is the name of their daughter.
There’s a few lines in this that stand out. Let’s start from the beginning:
you said you fucking picked me cos I looked like your daughter
16 you’re disgusting.
Paedophile cunt hope you’re glad that I’m finally gushing
To be clear; she is clearly addressing Ninja (real name Watkin Tudor Jones) in the first part of this song. She finishes the section with a strong “NINJA… choke!” making it undeniable who she is referring to. In these opening bars, Zheani seems to make a correlation with her being “picked” by Jones due to her resemblance to his daughter.
(Zheani vs. Sixteen Jones)
It is on record that Zheani and Ninja and Yolandi hung out sometime in 2013 – there is photo evidence of this. In fact, the images are still up on Zheani’s Instagram today. At the time she was 20 years old which is consistent with a later line in the song:
The fear, only 20 years, to find out I’m deceived
the nice man for the internet’s not who I came to meet
Next, Zheani goes into detail. The kind of detail that can be verified on the internet.
Soft Private school boy your fronting
You jacked white trash gangster style
but I came from that Nightmare
You fake fuck
In 2013, the group was accused of stealing their whole style from street kids who went under the name “The Glue Gang Boys”. According to the article written by Greg Moskovitch:
“In a story released by Johannesburg newspaper City Press, Cape Town farmer, Andre Laubscher alleged that Watkin Tudor Jones a.k.a. Ninja, jacked Die Antwoord’s style from a group of street kids to whom he offered shelter on his farm, by plying them with drugs and alcohol.”
Jones allegedly stole this style from these underprivileged youths. What makes these accusations compelling is his background. Jones did not grow up on the streets; he actually attended Parktown Boys School in Johannesburg which is one of the most respected schools in the area. Jones is actually highly privileged, white and English-Speaking and is not native to the Afrikaans street accent he has developed for his persona. The tattoos, the slang… everything may have been stolen. However, this has been a popular criticism of the group since their inception. It is well know that the characters they play are fictional. But at what cost? The song continues:
Your lucks up
You shared those photos while on set with Blomkamp
emailed them to Copely that was a crime cunt
Sex offending ass come to ‘stralia get locked up
On the set of the Neil Blomkamp film “Chappie” it was alleged by many production staff that Jones acted abhorrently on set. In this line “you shared those photos while on set with Blomkamp” it is not clear what the nature of the photos are. However, in the story picked up by the tabloids in 2015, besides the alleged rude behavior, telling actors how to act, hitting on women, etc. what really got between Blomkamp and Jones were the illicit photos he allegedly sent to fellow cast members.
Could these photos have something to do with Zheani? Or is she just calling him out for his allegedly awful behavior?
“It is claimed by two sources that Ninja sent explicit photos?–?in the act of having fellatio performed on himself?–?to at least one female member of the set”
Neil Blomkamp himself is claimed to have said “I don’t ever want to be in the same room as him again.”
Some more quotes from the story that refer to Jones include:
“That pile of sh*t”
“He is pure evil,”
“The other actors were gatvol. He told them how to do their scenes. He’d call and say they were doing it wrong and tell them how to do it,”
“I felt sorry for the guy looking after Die Antwoord. They were always making stupid demands.”
“He was stupid,”
“He’s totally burnt his bridges with Neill.”
One story alleged that Jones took superstar Dev Patel out to “the hood” and attempted to dupe him into eating weed-laced brownies.
“After work on set, Ninja allegedly took star actor Dev Patel on a visit to the suburb to “show him the hood”, says a source.”
During the visit, “Ninja gave Dev a ‘space cake’ to eat. Dev ate some but then his bodyguard took it saying there might be marijuana inside. Dev was livid.”
Now that we’ve covered the stories that Zheani references and appear verifiable – let’s get into the story she tells about her and Jones’ interaction.
After the opening section – Zheani begins with “Go fuck yourself Yolandi” implicating her in this as well. She claims that Yolandi (real name Andri du Toit) was the first one to contact her – making her an alleged accomplice in all of this.
You spent a decade with this man
getting brainwashed by this man
Your still playing out his plan
And grooming up his fucking fans
You contacted me and I would bet that he told you to
Zheani then goes on to say that it was Jones’ idea to have du Toit’s invite Zheani out to Africa to meet them. The lyrics then seem to suggest that Jones and Zheani had had correspondence online.
the nice man for the internets not who I came to meet
This line brings up more questions – How did they first get in contact? What were their interactions like?
She describes what allegedly happens next with a single line – which is repeated throughout the song.
torture ritual, candle vigil, an innocent girl and a sick individual
torture ritual, candle vigil, an innocent girl and a sick individual
“Torture ritual, candle vigil”?! Presumably the innocent girl is 20 year old Zheani and the sick individual is Watkin Tudor Jones. Did Jones perform some kind of ritual on Zheani? They do seem to use Magick symbolism in their visuals often though I couldn’t find anything about them going into detail about their religious beliefs or practices.
Okay… if that wasn’t enough for you – there is more.
In the final part of this lyrical exposé/onslaught – Zheani drops yet another bomb:
You wrote “sex” about me you wrote “ugly boy” about me
I wrote this about YOU I think its fair trade dude.
Ugly on the skin but fucking uglier within
You claim your golden hearted but your heart is black as sin
“UGLY BOY” is one of Die Antwoord’s biggest songs… the video has cameos from Jack Black, Cara Delevingne and Marilyn Manson. People have speculated who this song is about, including myself when I first heard it in 2014, and generally concluded it’s probably about du Toit. Could this song actually be about Zheani Sparkes?! “Sex” is another notable song on the same project. The lyrics do seem to sort of coincide with the story on “The Question”.
(Lyrics from “Sex” by Die Antwoord)
I get bored of bitches, yeah import a bitch
(Is this shit really going down?)
Of course it is, about the time to freak the sorcerers
“Import a bitch” and “freak the sorcerers” stood out upon reading these lyrics.
He trafficked me to Africa, that was your bright idea
Filled me with fright and then the demon appeared
One of the photos of Zheani and Jones together is him tattooing “Witch” onto her arm while together in Africa. Does Witch = Sorcerer?
Jones tattooing Zheani in 2013
The last line, before the hook line “torture ritual”, asks a simple question
Am I still your rainbow girl?
This question (by the way “Die Antwoord” is Afrikaans for “The Answer”) seems to tie the whole narrative together. The question seems to imply that Jones may have once referred to Zheani as “his rainbow girl” when she was 20 years old. We, of course, can’t verify this.
However, when I typed in “Die Antwoord Rainbow” onto Google I found out their daughter, Sixteen, is in a band called “The Boy With the Rainbow Face”.
None of these claims have been verified and we make no claims as to the lyrics’ authenticity. We have reached out to Zheani’s team and they have declined to comment at this time.
UPDATE 8:36AM PST
