Die Antwoord rose to international fame in 2010 through the virality of the music video for their song "Enter the Ninja" on social media and through blog posts, soon signing to Interscope Records and reissuing their debut studio album, SOS, later that year.

Die Antwoord's style revolves around the South African zef movement, which is largely based on working class Afrikaners and "white trash" motifs.

[4][5][6] Around 2003, Jones met Anri du Toit, who was a student and worked as a waitress, outside of a club in Cape Town and, after meeting again at one of his shows, asked her to contribute vocals to a Constructus Corporation song.

[14][15] Die Antwoord formed in 2008 in Cape Town, then consisting of Jones, known as Ninja; du Toit, known as Yolandi Visser and stylized as Yo-Landi Vi$$er; and de Nobrega, the group's producer who went by the name DJ Hi-Tek.

[20][21] The music video for their single "Enter the Ninja"—which starred South African DJ Leon Botha, who also opened for Die Antwoord's earliest concerts and was notable for being the oldest living person with progeria before his death in 2011 at age 26—was released in late 2009 along with a short promotional video titled Zef Side, which was directed by Sean Metelerkamp and featured interviews with the group as well as their song "Beat Boy".

[60][61] It won the award for Best Music Video at the 20th Plus Camerimage film festival in Poland and was praised by The Guardian's Andrew Frost as a rare success among collaborations between contemporary artists and popular musicians.

[66][67][68][15] The Observer gave the record three out of five stars, with Ally Carnwath writing that, though "the cheap thrills of [Die Antwoord's] fairground synths have palled" since SOS, their "double act still sounds weird and abrasive in the best possible way".

The song and its video depict Visser as an orphaned schoolgirl in a relationship with a drug dealer from the Numbers Gang named Anais who gets released from prison and has anal sex with her.

[7][89][90] In May 2014, Die Antwoord announced the title and cover of their third album, Donker Mag, and released its second single "Pitbull Terrier" with a music video directed by Ninja, in which he plays a dog that wreaks havoc on the public.

[92] It became their most commercially successful release in the United States at the time, reaching their then-highest peak on the Billboard 200 at number 37 and topping the Dance/Electronic Albums chart after selling seven thousand copies in its opening week.

[35][93] David Jeffries of AllMusic praised it as being "as inspired, awful, and awesome as their debut" and lacking the "dead spots" he found on Tension, while Adam Finley of PopMatters wrote that, though it was "not a great album overall", it presented "proof that Die Antwoord's multimedia odyssey isn't out of surprises just yet".

Its music video was directed by Ninja and featured cameos from Cara Delevingne, Jack Black, Marilyn Manson, Dita Von Teese, and Flea, among others.

[11][106] In it, Ninja and Visser star as fictionalized versions of themselves alongside Jose Pablo Cantillo, who collectively portray a trio of drug dealers that abducts the film's eponymous robot (voiced by Sharlto Copley) to assist them with heists while mentoring him on how to be a gangster.

[116] Ninja and Visser met DJ Muggs, a founding member of the hip hop group Cypress Hill and one of their musical idols, when photographer Estevan Oriol introduced them to him at a quinceañera in East Los Angeles.

[124] Die Antwoord went on their international Mount Ninji and Da Nice Time Kid Tour from July to October 2016, with its North American leg including performances at Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits.

[93] Jon Falcone of Drowned in Sound complimented it on its "huge rap tunes" while Dave Beech of The Line of Best Fit wrote that it was "rooted deeply in the affection both Ninja and Yo-Landi still quite clearly have for each other".

[146][147] They released Tommy Can't Sleep, a short film starring their daughter Sixteen Jones and Jack Black and directed by Visser, in June of that year, followed by a trailer for a television series they were creating, South African Ninja, in July.

[157][158] In March 2019, Australian rapper Zheani released "The Question", a diss track against Die Antwoord, in which she accused the group of sex trafficking her to South Africa, that gained attention online.

[159] Six months later, Zheani filed a police report against Ninja in Queensland, accusing him of having violently sexually assaulted her in 2013 in Wilderness and of sharing revenge porn of her to his Chappie castmates.

[160] She alleged that Visser connected her to Ninja, with whom she began emailing frequently, with him writing that he loved her while comparing her to his daughter, sending her explicit photos, and arranging for her to visit him in South Africa.

Following this, American singer Dionna Dal Monte, who became known in the Italian media for having a swastika tattooed on her breast, also came forward to allege that Ninja had sexually assaulted her in Italy in 2014.

[172] In May 2022, du Preez, Visser and Ninja's adoptive son, appeared in a 45-minute-long video interview published by the South African news organization News24 and conducted by Crossman, in which he described his childhood growing up with them.

He stated that the duo adopted him "to be a slave"; exposed him to drugs, gang activity, pornography, and weapons; convinced him that he was "the king of hell"; encouraged violent behavior between him and his brother, Adri, including when du Preez stabbed him three times and they congratulated him; told him to mock his biological family for being poor as they recorded it; abandoned him with an au pair for two years in Johannesburg while they lived in Los Angeles; and sexualized his older adoptive sister.

[176][177] A documentary about the duo's origins, Zef: The Story of Die Antwoord, was directed by Jon Day, narrated by their daughter, Sixteen Jones, and released in March 2024.

[32] Their work is considered by critics to be satirical of the music industry, gangsta rap, South African racial identity, and commercialized hip hop.

[98][195][196] Visser takes musical inspiration from artists such as Björk, PJ Harvey, Marilyn Manson, Aphex Twin, and Nine Inch Nails and Ninja has stated that he is influenced by hardcore hip-hop of the 1990s.

[2][29][197][17][141] Ninja called it the "underbelly" of "very conservative and stiff" Afrikaner culture and compared it to "apocalyptic debris", while Visser has described it as being "poor but ... fancy" and "sexy".

[32] Upon their rise to popularity in 2010, critics and audiences, primarily in the United States, frequently questioned whether Die Antwoord were a real group, a joke, or an act of performance art.

[162] Ninja stated in a 2011 video interview titled "Faggot" following the release of "Fok Julle Naaiers" that the duo was entitled to use the word as their producer, DJ Hi-Tek, is a gay man, and that they were not homophobic.

[169] According to Roper, they were considered pariahs by the South African media by 2020 for their myriad controversies, while Mathilde Boussion wrote that, by 2022, the duo's "disturbing world" was "no longer fascinating".