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http://www.vbs.tv/watch/vbs-special--2/tokoloshe
Back in June, we invited South African rave-rap crew Die Antwoord to play their first show in New York City. They are one of our favorite bands and their performance that day was one of the most hectic, intense and amazing shows we had seen in a long time. While we were hanging out with them here, Ninja and Yo-Landi kept talking about a little monster called Tokoloshe, the most feared of all African demons. Ninja told us about how when he was growing up, his nanny would use a stack of bricks to raise her bed up, just to keep the Tokoloshe away at night. It turns out this is a fairly common practice among women in South Africa since this hairy, pot-bellied dwarf, unlike your typical Western boogiemonsters, is believed to have a penis the size of a horse’s and a penchant for sneaking into people’s bedrooms and raping them.
The story goes that once you’ve slept with a Tokoloshe, you’ll never be satisfied by a man ever again—it typically leads to divorce and basically ruins your life. This phenomenon is so commonplace that the South African Daily Sun regularly features cover stories about Tokoloshes raping women, men or stealing groceries, and even publishes theories about remote-controlled Tokoloshes used to steal peoples’ money.
Ninja and Yo Landi invited VBS.TV to South Africa to try and find this demon even though no one has ever filmed this thing. We talked to crime reporters at the The Daily Sun, people on the streets of Johannesburg, and even sangomas (witch doctors) about the Tokoloshe’s origins and what you can do to keep him at bay.
Tokoloshe gæsteoptræder sågar i musikvideoen til en af Die Antwoords nyeste sange (som omhandler omskæring af sydafrikanske drenge i Xhosa-stammen - mere om det her):
Die Antwoord - Evil Boy (Explicit Version)
Ryan Dombal skrev:Pitchfork: Is there any symbolic meaning behind the hairy monster (above) in the video?
Ninja: The monster! Oh my goodness-- that's called a Tokoloshe. It's the most feared African demon; the African people are really superstitious. It's just a little black hairy thing, a little man with a big fat stomach. He's really terrifying and comes out at nighttime and he's got a penis as big as a horse's. And African ladies explained to us that if they're having a wet dream, it actually means that the Tokoloshe is boning them in their sleep and their husband will never be able to satisfy them again because of the Tokoloshe's mega-penis. That's why if you go into the ghetto now a lot of African women have their beds on top of piled-up bricks.
Also, you can put a curse on someone in Africa by getting a witch doctor to send them a Tokoloshe. The witch doctor mixes medicine and blood and herbs and then pours this mixture over a Tokoloshe voodoo doll. And the voodoo doll will come to life and the witch doctor can command it to come to their house and fuck it all up. A Tokoloshe can ruin your financial situation or make you divorce your wife. Another thing that people can do to make a Tokoloshe-- and they do this in the ghettos in South Africa-- is have sex with the animal.
Pitchfork: OK ...
Ninja: Like a man will have sex with the animal and then the animal gives birth to a Tokoloshe. Only children can see a Tokoloshe; it's invisible to adults. So we thought it'd be quite cool to have the Tokoloshe in the video. Someone said that it looked kinda like the monsters from Where the Wild Things Are.
Pitchfork: So are you paying tribute to that myth?
Ninja: Well, it's not a myth. Some people seriously don't wanna fucking talk about that shit. We were just thinking of different Evil Boy elements, so the Tokoloshe is pretty much an Evil Boy himself. He's just a little mischievous man-boy thing with a giant demon penis. It came from one of my lyrics: "I'm gonna roll to the club like a Tokoloshe/ Ninja's hung like a fuckin' horse."
[...]
Pitchfork: What about the girl in the video who has no nipples?
Ninja: Yeah, that girl was born with no nipples. She was at one of our shows and I was gonna sign her boobs and I was like, "You have no nipples. That's the most amazing thing ever. Do you wanna be in the video?"
