Die Antwoord Respond to Video of Alleged Hate Crime

The duo have since been dropped from two festival lineups

Photo: Amanda Demme

BY Exclaim! StaffPublished Aug 19, 2019

A video in which Die Antwoord appear to physically assault and shout homophobic slurs at Hercules and Love Affair's Andy Butler has surfaced online.

The video, recorded at Adelaide, New Zealand's Future Music Festival in 2012, was uploaded by the group's former videographer Ben Crossman earlier this month, though has since been removed and reposted across the internet.

In the clip, the duo appear to attack Butler before shouting, "Run, f****t, run! Run for your life b*tch." Following the scuffle, the video shows the group's Ninja claiming that his bandmate Yolandi Visser was sexually assaulted by Butler.

The clip contains extremely graphic language. If you still wish to see it, you can watch it here

In the wake of the video surfacing, the duo have been removed from lineup of Louisville, Kentucky's Louder Than Life festival and Las Vegas' Life Is Beautiful Music & Art festival. The former event chalked up their cancellation to "unforeseen circumstances."

Yesterday (August 19), Ninja responded to the video in a lengthy Facebook post, claiming that Crossman "cleverly edited this video clip to make it seem like me and ¥o-landi commited a hate crime towards a person because they are gay. However Ben beat up the guy from Hercules himself while filming this same video clip."

"This was just a fight with someone who fucked with us. Not a hate crime," he continued. "This fight had nothing to with the fact that this guy was gay. We dont care about people's sexual preference. Our DJ and best friend DJ HITEK is gay, and alot of people in our crew are gay."

Ninja then detailed a series of alleged interactions the pair had with Butler that led up to the on-camera incident, which you can find below.

"At the end of the day we are kind people with good hearts who make surreal art and hardcore rap music," he concluded. "We dont look for trouble, and we believe in love, respect and equality. But if you fuck with us, we gonna pull up."

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