Die Antwoord is in Lawrence tonight

There’s some confusion, it seems, about whether Die Antwoord is a joke. Having spent some time with the South African electro-rap crew’s music and videos, I’m not sure how anybody could see them as anything other than a subversive comedy act à la Ali G. I am not a gay/This penis is for the girls/My penis is clean/My penis is strong, goes a line from “Evil Boy,” one of Die Antwoord’s bigger hits. On a more recent track, this year’s “Fok Julle Naaiers,” their DJ, Hi-Tek, closes the song with a super-offensive, hard-ass rap, taken verbatim from that press conference in which Mike Tyson screams at a heckler that he will “eat his asshole alive.” They pair these hilarious ideas with a warped, purposely moronic version of Top 40 music, which is also hilarious, and sometimes even catchy. Observe the spectacle tonight (Wednesday) at Liberty Hall, in Lawrence.