| Background: | person | ||||||||||||||||||
| David Scott | |||||||||||||||||||
| Birth Name: | David Scott | ||||||||||||||||||
| Alias: | The Kiffness | ||||||||||||||||||
| Birth Date: | 11 February 1988[1] | ||||||||||||||||||
| Birth Place: | Cape Town, South Africa | ||||||||||||||||||
| Genre: | Electronic, parody | ||||||||||||||||||
| Occupation: | Musician | ||||||||||||||||||
| Years Active: | 2013–present | ||||||||||||||||||
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David Scott (born 11 February 1988), also known by his stage name the Kiffness,[2] is a South African musician, producer, and parody artist who is the founder and lead singer of the band the Kiffness.[3] [4] Despite the band's name, Scott is referred to as the Kiffness alone.[5] [6]
In 2004, Scott was a member of the KwaZulu-Natal Youth Choir.[7] He was educated at Michaelhouse school and went to the University of the Witwatersrand to study medicine.[8] However, he dropped out and switched to studying music and philosophy at Rhodes University while working as a DJ and playing in a jazz band. In 2013, he released his first single, "Where are You Going?", with Matthew Gold, which made the 5FM Top 40. Their album Kiff was nominated at the 21st South African Music Awards in 2015 and again in 2017.[9] [10]
Scott usually performs wearing a floral custom suit that he had made in Vietnam, with material selected by his wife and himself, as it resembled his grandmother's curtains.[11]
Scott creates satirical songs that are mostly aimed at South African political issues. In 2017, he released a track called "White Privilege" as an attempt to make white South Africans more socially aware. In 2018, he filmed a video for his Afrikaans song "Pragtig Meisie", with a picture of the Afrikaner nationalist singer Steve Hofmeyr's face on a blow-up doll.[12]
In 2019, Scott banned the South African Broadcasting Corporation from playing his music when it emerged they had not been paying musicians for playing their songs, and he alleged he was owed R60,000.[13] The same year, he launched a solo career.[14]
In late 2020, Scott collaborated with Turkish musician Bilal Göregen in a remix of Göregen's rendition of "Ievan polkka" that went viral on YouTube.[15] In 2021, he created a song parodying Miriam Makeba's "The Click Song" to assist people with pronouncing the new names of Port Elizabeth, King William's Town, and Maclear after the South African government changed them.[16]
During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Scott supported Ukraine by remixing the Ukrainian folk song "Oi u luzi chervona kalyna", performed by Boombox frontman Andriy Khlyvnyuk. The latter cancelled his American tour to defend his country against the invasion by Russian Armed Forces.[17] Royalties from the remix were intended to go toward humanitarian aid for the Armed Forces of Ukraine.[18]
Scott has courted controversy in several racially tinged and politically oriented incidents.[19] [20] [21] In 2020, he parodied the national anthem of South Africa for a song called "Nkosazan' Dlamini Trafficker" as part of criticism of government minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma's ban on the sale of cigarettes in South Africa during the COVID-19 lockdown.[22] The mayor of Ekurhuleni, Mzwandile Masina, criticised Scott for this, claiming it to be racist.[23] Scott and Masina later discussed the issue over the phone, with Scott defending the song as satire.
Later that year, the South African pharmacy chain Clicks aired an advertisement that the far-left Economic Freedom Fighters deemed racist. Scott was subsequently called out on social media for referring to the ad as a mere mistake.[24]
In December 2022, a pub in Cape Town, known as Hank's Olde Irish Pub, created a furore after they supposedly refused entry to a black man. Scott received backlash when he responded to a tweet and defended the pub's owner by stating that he is a pastor who feeds homeless people.[25]
In November 2023, Scott faced criticism after calling out Anele Mdoda for applying a double standard when criticizing racist speech on the part of a White teenager while endorsing Julius Malema, who is known for making anti-White statements.[26]