Okay, I now have yet another confession to make. I have to come clean, admit it and face the stark truth. I cannot help it, I am addicted … and sometimes I fear that this addiction will become an obsession, one that could easily take over my life. I am hooked on watching dumb, maybe even mundane, shit that I often return repeatedly to whenever rabbit holing on YouTube during the usual small hours of the night / early morning before I finally turn into a pumpkin/cabbage/lettuce* (* delete where appropriate).
Said videos, if not those showcasing music by bands I have never heard of before, or indeed those whom I have, are of two main types. The first are P.O.V. vids of journeys – variously on trains or other transport – filmed from the cab window, or cycle journeys filmed on Go-Pro cameras or similar. These videos are almost always in my favourite place the Netherlands, although in recent months I have now spread my horizons a little further to take in Belgium, France, Germany, Scandinavia and US/Canadian cities too. There is something inherently relaxing and chilled out watching the scenery of roads or rails passing by at various speeds whilst accompanied by a soundtrack of your own choice. To this end I have always loved watching road movies where the narrative takes place across a series of different concurrent locations, never fixating on one place for too long.
The second of my YouTube ‘guilty pleasures’ are videos featuring animals. Oh, but of course. Much as I have absolutely zero interest in watching [narcissistic] humans going about their business on either social media (TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, etc) or YT, seeing cats, dogs, birds or whatever else just being themselves or often out-smarting humans is what really enchants and uplifts me – it’s a perfect panacea to the soul-sapping, depressing fare elsewhere that is perpetually rammed down our throats on these social media platforms on a daily basis.
So it was during many separate occasions around the time of the first pandemic lockdown five years ago that I first became aware of one artist in particular who was sharing his memes on social media (principally TikTok and Facebook) as well as YouTube. In fact it was a direct result of the lockdown that this individual hit upon the novel idea of adapting his already considerable musical talents (as a renowned producer, DJ and multi instrumentalist in his own country) to create off-beat and decidedly endearing short musical memes / parodies as a way of lifting the spirits of all those who were enduring the bleak and never ending months of being isolated from all that they held true and dear.
Step forward South African musician David Michael Petrie Scott, for it is he who is said DJ, multi-instrumentalist and producer who started his project The Kiffness (that’s ‘kiff’ as in South African slang for ‘cool’ by the way) in 2011 and released his first recordings in 2013. He has over the years gained an increasingly respected reputation for his distinctively quirky style of EDM, often incorporating music from other ethnic genres. More recently, he has raised hundreds of thousands through his memes and Bandcamp releases alone to benefit worthy social, environmental and humanitarian causes not just in his own country but elsewhere, be it homelessness, disabilities or children’s charities and schools.
Initially set up as a collaborative venture, working with other musicians and like minded creatives (including his own brother), the formative incarnations of The Kiffness were more in the vein of a traditional band. Gradually garnering more recognition and radio exposure locally, the collective continued to record and perform until the Covid pandemic of 2020 brought things juddering to a halt.
Faced with lockdown and self isolation, Scott turned to the internet for inspiration and it was at this juncture that The Kiffness soon became a vehicle for just Scott to weave his particularly endearing brand of offbeat mischief and mayhem, often poking fun at and lampooning political figures and subject matter. He devised the first of his many ‘internet collaborations’, producing short memes adopting and sampling elements of smartphone videos from the general public – sent to him during those interminable lockdown months from all corners of the globe.
In the last three years, however, he has become most well known (and feted, not to mention hugely popular internationally) for his delirious and heartwarming cat- and dog-sampling songs, all composed spontaneously and seemingly without any effort at all, utilising the briefest of passages lifted from cats meowing/caterwauling and dogs barking/howling accompanied by his arsenal of AKAI samplers and various acoustic instruments. These compositions – often simple ditties featuring his vocals – are all without exception hugely entertaining, not to mention totally addictive, earworms that just stick in your head the moment you first hear them.
[embedded content]
It’s not just cats and dogs that are his popular currency either. Scott even makes lighthearted fun of mundane situations he finds himself caught up in. There is one extremely funny clip he has shared on social media of him *apparently* sat in his car when an irate redneck with a face like thunder suddenly storms up to his vehicle and starts punching the side window in sheer anger. Scott then somehow contrives to sample his adversary’s striking of the window and in a matter of seconds he pulls out his guitar and, using the pounding as the backbeat, launches into a rendition of Seven Nation Army by the White Stripes, complete with suitably spoofed up lyric. Of course, it’s cleverly edited to make out as if this scenario is really taking place, but it’s still hilarious nevertheless.
Elsewhere, other collaborations assume the form of ‘live virtual jams’ he undertakes with townspeople across the global musical diaspora – hitching his electronic sounds and clever samples (heck, even sometimes with the cats and dogs making cameos!) with folk from the Congo, Nigeria, Brazil, Turkey, Jamaica, Greece, etc….to create magical cross-cultural fusions of beats, rhythms and melodies.
Perhaps what is the greatest attribute of all is how Scott has been pivotal in simply plucking videos of ordinary folk completely at random from around the world – captured in totally ordinary and unassuming situations (a young native Jamaican kid singing in the classroom, a blind Turkish musician busking with his djembe in a park) and then, through the medium of song and of course shared social media platforms – bringing the talents of these individuals to wider recognition when the videos explode virally on Instagram or TikTok, and, most gratifying of all, earning them all royalties for their performances via the wider public domain.
Of the latter – said blind Turkish musician Bilal Göregen was actually performing an obscure Finnish folk song, and was spotted by Scott through YouTube. Scott reached out to him via Instagram and he agreed to have his piece made into a dance track, which was then augmented with other musicians and collaborators. On release, said remixed dance track then went meteoric across the globe, making the Turkish news, as well as Italy’s specialist dance chart and even being sung by children in schools in China. It’s all very inspirational stuff and it’s ensured that The Kiffness is garnering greater recognition / adoration by the month, as his global reach thanks to these videos has become so remarkable many are clamouring for him to take this newly expanded stage show on tour in their own countries.
[embedded content]
Scott has already been touring this audio-visual smorgasbord in 2023 and 2024 to great success and acclaim. But now the global appetite for his creations has far exceeded even his own humble expectations.
As of this year, starting in January, live dates in several European territories, the UK (and soon, the US and Canada this coming spring), have been testimony to The Kiffness’ ever growing popularity. The recent UK jaunt in February across five cities was a big success and a total revelation for everybody who was present. I actually caught them at the Manchester show in mid February – playing the Academy 2. I had already seen clips of their live shows thanks to footage already widely shared online (YouTube again) and was looking very much forward to experiencing all of this playful tomfoolery as I was expecting to see them perform their ‘greatest YT hits’ or somesuch.
What was most remarkable about the tour they embarked on was how – just like the videos and memes themselves – their live performances also appealed to an incredibly wide age demographic. It was so heartwarming to see at the Academy (which was almost sold out by the way!) an audience so diverse it comprised kids as young as 4 or 5 years old with their parents, students, thirty-something indie kids, ravers, goths, metal-heads, older middle-aged types like us, and 70-something pensioners and indeed grandparents.
Thus the appeal of [this current incarnation of] The Kiffness is without question truly universal – from five to eighty-five, as they say. To me this is unprecedented and it’s a wonderful affirmation of just how expertly this unassuming and humble guy from South Africa has somehow managed to bring together several disparate generations under one roof all in thrall to the same cause: cats, dogs, and lots of musical merriment, mischief and mayhem! A stroke of inspired genius, in other words.
I have to be honest and say that I was so pleasantly taken aback by this – as this has to be the first time ever in all my years of attending gigs at Manchester University’s Academy venues that I have witnessed such a broad range of ages at one show. And it wasn’t even a Matinee either – but an evening audio-visual live set that started at 8.30pm and ended at 10.00pm lasting all of 90 minutes… filled with bangers from the get-go, interspersed with Scott’s acknowledgements and shout outs (of the special ‘internet collaborators’) which he announced from the stage to huge supportive and appreciative cheers from the gathered throng.
There were a lot of touching moments too, of which two in particular bookended the evening: the opening number was the Turkish busker Bilal Göregen performing the Ievan Polka, looking imposing up there on the giant video screen bashing away like he didn’t have a care in the world, whilst us gathered masses were raving on down like we were at Creamfields! The closer was the aforementioned Jamaican school kid singing a strident version of It’s A Beautiful Day – looking for all the world like a young Desmond Dekker – and it actually brought tears to many people’s eyes, as this followed right on from another – this time African – kid performing his endearing rendition of Bob Marley‘s Three Little Birds.
[embedded content]
In between was a real grab bag of aural/visual delights – all of them utterly brilliantly inspired. Parts of the set were like a dance festival mega-mix with numbers often cleverly segued together or even drop-tempo’d into the slower ones (the expert linking together of the diverse opening trio of numbers alone made me think of the Chemical Brothers, no shit, really!). All the while the pace seldom flagged as the entire hall was up and dancing en masse.
The much-anticipated ‘Cat Jams’ section (just listen to those deafening rapturous cheers when Scott announced it!) was, inevitably, the icing on a particularly sweet cake – and the smiles never left the faces of the crowd that evening. It really was life-affirmingly positive vibes from start to finish. It made for such a welcome change from the doom and gloom and despair of the world in general outside the venue that The Kiffness were doing what seems so effortless – bringing people of all social backgrounds and ages together, united in the love of one thing – and just one thing: music. This was the kind of gathering in celebration of art that should be treasured.
With just two people on stage – Scott himself manning his compact retinue of samplers and keyboard controllers, augmenting many numbers with live trumpet and acoustic guitar, plus his trusty sidekick Shaun positioned stage left who was primarily responsible for the entertaining animations and visuals up on the screen playing perfectly in sync with everything else – they put on a show that was in turns dazzling, euphoric, exhilarating, amusing and above all 100 percent entertaining. It really was worth some of us older farts dragging ourselves out for, as for me in particular, the prospect of standing for more than 45 minutes at any gig these days – let alone 90 – is more than a little daunting for my increasingly clapped out joints. But nevertheless, I ended up mentally overriding the fatigue as I succumbed to the prevailing mood of sheer rapture and joy, bopping valiantly along with the rest of them!
It takes a truly bitter, cold-hearted soul to rain on this technicolour parade and dismiss any of this as inconsequential or trite. Even considering how the oft-used expression that ‘music brings people together, whilst politics and religion divides’ can sometimes verge on cliche, despite it being all too true. You only need to look at every single one of The Kiffness’ many YouTube videos to see that at no point are any of the viewers comments even disparaging or showing dislikes (given that YT is an absolute breeding ground for insensitive trolls and keyboard warriors who simply delight in hiding behind their anonymity and being nasty for no good reason), but practically unanimous in praise for this guy’s not inconsiderable achievements in making people smile and bringing a bit of lightness, levity, joy to those who have either seen too much tragedy and suffering or have been so punch drunk and battle-scarred by all the bad things that social media and the outside world have been dealing them (myself included).
After a couple of encores (including the celebrated – and much missed and dearly departed – Cala the Cat’s I Go Meow eliciting the biggest mass sway-along of the evening, together with dozens of cardboard cut-out ‘nodding cat heads’ held aloft for good measure), it was all over and the crowd – still beaming despite the temperature of the hall having risen by about 20 degrees – filed out into the drizzly night, but around 150 of them (at least !) hung around for the meet and greet … forming a colossal queue in the foyer which is sweet testimony to how Kiff-mania has well and truly hit town! I believe more than 300 T-shirts were sold too on the night! That is almost half of the number of people who were present.
The Kiffness came, they conquered and earned their stripes, and nearly 700 people left with big happy grins on their faces and strange caterwauling ringing in their ears. Not your usual Saturday night shenanigans then, granted, but heck, was it a blast. And it’s not every day when I get the chance to bang on enthusiastically on about something that I first saw on YouTube and social media, but I guess there is always an exception to the rule. The latter-day material of The Kiffness may arguably fall under the category of ‘novelty’, but when confronted with compositions which are this skillful and creative, it’s only fair to say that the ‘novelty’ in question resides in a distinctly higher level all of its own.
Footnote:
As there are no photos or footage taken of the Academy 2 show in Manchester that evening, this YouTube footage video below of The Kiffness – in full fettle on one of the recent 2024 European dates in Berlin – features the exact same set list and performance (identical in every way). This provides a very accurate impression of what it was like when we were all gathered there in thrall to their maverick genius.
[embedded content]
all words by Martin Gray
For other articles and his profile, see here
The Kiffness official website can be found here.
Follow The Kiffness on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and YouTube
For music and merchandise by The Kiffness, see Bandcamp here
We have a small favour to ask. Subscribe to Louder Than War and help keep the flame of independent music burning. Click the button below to see the extras you get!
- Source: NEWHD MEDIA
