An inquiry into the sign language debacle which occurred during the funeral of South African President, Nelson Mandela, has revealed that Thamsanqa Jantjie, who was accused of signing “nonsense” during important speeches by world leaders, was actually signing the lyrics to Underworld’s 1995 hit Born Slippy.
Mr. Jantjie, seen here asking for a cigarette, has refuted the claim that he was signing the popular Underworld track saying that he’s “never even heard of Underworld” and that the reason he signed nonsense was because he was angry with poor pay conditions and decided to “just sign the most random bullshit that came into my head”.
The court heard that the random nonsense that Mr. Jantjie was signing during speeches by world leaders like Barack Obama “exactly matched the lyrics to the 1995 hit” in spite of his claims that he “just signed gibberish”.
“We reviewed all the evidence in the tapes from that day,” explained inquiry leader Tamzin Bredenkamp, “We had the signs that Mr. Jantjie made analysed by sign language experts and they all agreed that instead of following what the speaker was saying, he was signing Born Slippy in its entirety.”
Experts claim that they first became alerted to the fact that Mr. Jantjie had been signing Born Slippy when they noticed several references to ‘Lager, lager, lager’ and ‘shouting mega, mega’.
“The frightening thing is that Mr. Janthie has been adamant that he’s never heard Born Slippy before, which is a bit weird what with it being such a dancefloor filling classic,” continued Ms. Bredenkamp. “His idea of mad gibberish to spout when he’s annoyed and Karl Hyde’s actual lyrics, are the same thing.”
“It’s plainly obvious that the man is unhinged,” she added. “Anyone who rambles the mad, drugged poetry of a lunatic, despite its claustrophobic manic beauty, at the funeral of one of the twentieth century’s greatest statesmen would have to be slightly mad, or Billy Bragg.”
“I’m not sure if Mr. Mandela was a big fan of Underworld, I know he liked Darren Emerson and thought dubnobasswithmyheadman was a ‘sick album’, but I’ve never heard him play Born Slippy,” she concluded, “but I think, if it was played, with his tolerant and open spirit, he probably would have mashed a few pills, took his top off and had it well large.”
I was hoping to see a video!