CHICAGO (CelebrityAccess) — South African hip-hop group Die Antwoord has been dropped from the lineup of Riot Fest Chicago’s Riot Fest and will be replaced by hip-hop icons The Wu-Tang Clan.
The festival did not offer a reason for the lineup change, but the shuffle comes after a video surfaced that appeared to show Die Antwoord’s Ninja engaged in an altercation with Love Affair’s Andy Butler at the Future Music Festival in Australia in 2012.
First reported by EDM.com, the video, which was captured by the group’s cameraman Ben Crossman, appears to show Ninja pursuing Butler for a confrontation while Die Antwoord’s Yolandi can be heard yelling homophobic slurs in the background.
Since the video surfaced, Ninja, AKA Watkin Jones, released a statement that tried to put the video in context, claiming that the confrontation occurred after Butler followed Yolandi into the women’s toilets and refused to let her leave.
“At the end of the tour, during our final festival in Adelaide, the guy from Hercules followed ¥o-landi into the girls (sic) bathroom and wouldn’t let her out, and she had to physically push past him to get out of the bathroom. She then ran to me and (our cameraman) Ben and told us what just happened. This is why we all got up and ran after this guy (which Ben has not included in his edit),” Ninja wrote in his explanatory statement.
He went on to try to clarify that the attack wasn’t’ a hate crime.
“This was just a fight with someone who fucked with us. Not a hate crime. This fight had nothing to with the fact that this guy was gay. We don’t care about people’s sexual preference. Our DJ and best friend DJ HITEK is gay, and a lot of people in our crew are gay.
“But if a person – no matter what their sexual preference it – keeps harassing us over and over, then physically harasses Yolandi, there will obviously be repercussions.
As well, he took exception to the video released by the group’s former cameraman Ben Crossman, claiming the video had been edited to show Die Antwoord in a bad light.
“Ben Crossman has been on a rampage to make us look bad in the media because we fired him years ago, for being mentally unstable, and malicious towards our family.”
While the festival has yet to make a statement addressing the change, Die Antwoord has also been quietly removed from the lineup of the Life Is Beautiful festival in Las Vegas.
