Get Zef With Die Antwoord

Yo-Landi Vi$$er, left, and Ninja of Die Antwoord.

Few current hip-hop acts are as outrageous as Die Antwoord, a crew from Cape Town, South Africa, that just released its second album, “TEN$ION” (Downtown). Rapper Ninja and singer Yo-Landi Vi$$er mix late-’80s rap with rave-inspired beats to create a style dubbed “zef,” Afrikaans slang for anything grubby yet stylish. Eye-popping videos for singles “Enter the Ninja” and “I Fink U Freeky” have made Die Antwoord a blog sensation, but on the eve of its first big U.S. tour, it remains largely unknown here. With that in mind, here’s a primer on the strange world of Die Antwoord — Afrikaans for “the Answer.”

Animal Style: The video for “Evil Boy,” off its 2010 debut “$0$,” features a jacket made from live rats — Vi$$er’s pets.

‘Dragon’ Lady: Last summer, word on the street was that director David Fincher wanted to cast Vi$$er as Lisbeth Salander in his adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.” Fincher denied the rumor, but her mullet does seem to have captured his heart.

Edgy Elegy: The “Enter the Ninja” video prominently features South African painter Leon Botha, who struggled with progeria, a disease that accelerates the aging process. When he died of complications in 2011 at age 26, he was one of the oldest living progeria patients in the world.