Turns out the problem was a proxy server. Since I am working with angular for parts of this project, grunt serves the angular stuff and proxies the django stuff.
proxies: [{
context: ['/api', '/ngforms', '/account', '/static', '/admin', '/__debug__'],
host: '<%= yeoman.pyhost %>',
port: '<%= yeoman.pyport %>'
}],
/__debug__ - grunt, DjDT .