Much amusement in Newcastle (no, not that one) OVER the weekend as Afrikaans rapper JACK Parow was escorted off stage halfway through his performance, in order to protect him from a small number of the audience who labelled him “satan slang” (devil snake) and a “disgrace to the Afrikaans language” after he swore on STAGE.
Afrikaans rapper Jack Parow says he is “cool” about being led off the stage midway through a concert in Newcastle when his lyrics upset some in the audience, and that he had a “rad time” regardless.
Parow, whose real name is Zander Tyler, was taken off the stage at the Vodacom Winter Festival on Friday night when a group, upset by his lyrics – which included profanities – physically threatened him.
One man nearly jumped on stage, but was pulled back by police called in to help festival organisers with the group.
A war of words erupted on the Newcastle Newspaper’s Facebook page, with people calling Parow a “satan slang (devil snake)” and a “disgrace to the Afrikaans language”.
Now, I can take OR leave Mnr Parow and I can HAPPILY manage without swearing in my music, but seriously now, what were the audience expecting? It’s like turning UP to a Metallica gig and “hoping they don’t play anything too loud”.
I have kids and I try to shelter them from swearing (amongst other things) as much as possible. That MEANS not taking them along to Jack Parow gigs (amongst other things). No matter HOW backward Newcastle is, the allegation that this performance was instrumental in corrupting their youth is a bit OTT.
Parow, unsurprisingly, was unabashed:
Parow said he was singing his song Dans Dans Dans when the microphone was taken from him by an organiser and he was led off stage. He then noticed police trying to calm a few men beside the stage.
“Some people don’t like the swearing. I was singing ‘Dans, dans f***en dans’. This one guy was shouting at me and said: ‘Why are you f***ing swearing?’, but that was funny because he was swearing at me.”
As you will have noted above, all of this has (typically) reared its head on Facebook, WHERE a couple of comments by Anthon von Lisenborgh have captured the imagination of some individuals and INTRODUCED random CAPITALISATION to popular culture:
The biggest IRONY for me is that Jack Parow’s shortened act followed that of Afrikaner Steve Hofmeyr (and whom Anthon comprehensively fails to accuse of being an “Artist of Satan”), a man perhaps BEST known for his racist rants, being divorced by his wife after having “numerous affairs”, assaulting the female editor of a popular gossip magazine and being described by the Deputy CEO of the South African Institute of Race Relations as being a disgrace to South Africa and of using his “not insignificant following to sow anger and hate among young white people”.
When it comes to role models, it would seem that the Afrikaans culture is struggling somewhat, but while Jack Parow CONTINUES to use the F-word (and he will continue to use the F-word) Anthon seems conveniently blinkered to Mr Hofmeyr’s shortcomings.
UPDATE: A bit more on Anthon – he’s written a book: Apocrypha 999 – The Mystery of Solomon and Queen Bilqis of Sheba – and in his author bio (filled with MORE random capitalisation), he includes THE line:
…do with it as you feel fit or do nothing if you want, it is up to you to decide and not me.
Obviously, the same doesn’t apply to concerts in North West Kwa-Zulu Natal.
