Watkin Tudor Jones

Jones was part of the South African rap band The Original Evergreen, which were signed to Sony Music.[7] He released one single with the group, 'Puff the Magik', which was banned from radio for its controversial lyrics about marijuana usage. He left in 1996 to release a solo album under Chameleon Records.[8]

In 2001, Jones released his debut solo album Memoirs Of A Clone.[9]

At the time, he was the lead vocalist of Max Normal, a hip hop act, which released their debut album entitled Songs From The Mall in 2001, which he disbanded in 2002.[10] Their last gig was played with Faithless on the group's 2002 South Africa tour.[11]

When Jones disbanded Max Normal in early 2002, he and musician Sibot invited Markus Wormstorm and Felix Laband to collaborate on The Constructus Corporation project, which resulted in the concept album and graphic novel The Ziggurat, released on 3 June 2002.[12]

Jones asked Anri du Toit, better known as his Die Antwoord bandmate Yolandi Visser to lend vocals for the project. She was credited as Anica the Snuffling.[13]

The Constructus Corporation disbanded in 2003.

In 2005, Jones released his second solo album The Fantastic Kill.[14] It was released in France in 2007 as MC Totally Rad And DJ Fuck Are Fucknrad under the name Fucknrad.[15]

In 2007, Jones resurrected and revamped Max Normal as the 'corporate' hip-hop group "MaxNormal.TV."

The new lineup consisted of Watkin Tudor Jones revising as Max Normal, and Anri du Toit as Yolandi Visser. The band also featured Neon Don playing various recurring characters and Justin De Nobrega making instrumentals.

The group released their debut and only album Good Morning South Africa in 2008.[16] A DVD featuring 13 skits, music videos and short films was released in the same year, titled Goeie More Zuid Afrika.[17]

Jones is currently a member of the South African rap-rave group Die Antwoord. The group was formed by Jones as Ninja, Anri du Toit as ¥o-Landi Vi$er and producer Justin De Nobrega as HITEK5000 (formerly referred to as DJ Hi-Tek and God). They have since added a second producer Lil2Hood.[18] Die Antwoord is part of the South African counterculture movement known as Zef.

The band released their debut album $O$ in 2009. It was made freely available online and attracted international attention for their music video "Enter the Ninja". They briefly signed with Interscope Records, and left after pressure from the label to be more generic. du Toit explained that Interscope "kept pushing us to be more generic" in order to make more money: "If you try to make songs that other people like, your band will always be shit. You always gotta do what you like. If it connects, it's a miracle, but it happened with Die Antwoord."[19]. They formed their own independent label, Zef Recordz and released their second album Tension through it.[20]

They have since released 2 other albums; Donker Mag in 2014[21], and Mount Ninji and da Nice Time Kid in 2016.[22] As well as this, Jones played a self-styled role as Ninja in the 2015 Neill Blomkamp film Chappie.[23]

In March 2019, Australian musician Zheani Sparkes released a diss track titled "The Question" detailing an alleged sexual assault on her by Jones in South Africa in 2013. Sparkes claimed that Jones drugged her, as well as human traffick[ed] her to Africa, and sent sexually explicit photos of her to cast members of Chappie. He also expressed having an active interest in her because of her resemblance to his now teenage daughter, Sixteen Jones, who in 2013, was only 8 years old.[24][25][26]

A conflict between Die Antwoord and Sparkes ensued on social media afterwards, where Jones accused Sparkes of catfishing him.[27] In September 2019, Sparkes filed a police report in Queensland, Australia formalizing her accusations of sexual assault and revenge porn.[28]

Italian-American singer Dionna Dal Monte also accused Jones of sexual assault, which she claimed occurred at a Die Antwoord show in 2014. Jones has denied all these allegations.[29]

In 2019, a video from 2012 surfaced, showing Jones and Die Antwoord bandmate Yolandi Visser fighting Hercules and Love Affair founder Andy Butler while calling him insults that could be seen as homophobic, such as "faggot". Butler openly identifies as gay.[30] After fighting him, Visser and Jones alert security staff, and, while crying, Visser claims she was sexually assaulted in a bathroom by Butler. Later on in the video, Jones tells her that her performance was "Oscar-winning".[31][32]

Jones responded on Facebook, claiming that the person who filmed the video edited it to make it seem like he and Visser were in the wrong. He claims that Butler harassed them in the days leading up to the fight, and that it had nothing to do with him being gay. Jones also claimed that he told Visser to act as "dramatic as possible" about what Butler did to avoid getting detained by security after the fight.[33]

Die Antwoord was subsequently dropped from the lineup of several upcoming festivals.[34]

• Puff The Magik (1995)

• Songs From the Mall (2001)

• The Ziggurat (2003)

• Rap Made Easy (2007)
• Good Morning South Africa (2008)

• $O$ (2009)
• TEN$ION (2012)
• Donker Mag (2014)
• Mount Ninji and Da Nice Time Kid (2016)
• The House of Zef (TBA 2020)

• Memoirs Of A Clone (2001)
• The Fantastic Kill (2005) (released in 2007 in France as MC Totally Rad And DJ Fuck are Fucknrad)