WATCH | The Kiffness takes shots at Malema with 'Jerusalema' parody

10 September 2020 - 11:07
By Unathi Nkanjeni
David Scott, founder of local band The Kiffness, has taken jabs at EFF leader Julius Malema but his video has been criticised.
Image: Press Image/The Kiffness David Scott, founder of local band The Kiffness, has taken jabs at EFF leader Julius Malema but his video has been criticised.

David Scott of The Kiffness has taken a jab at EFF leader Julius Malema in a parody video of the song Jerusalema, after the Clicks stores shutdown led by the party.

This week saw EFF members mobilising for a national Clicks shutdown after the retailer's hair advert sparked a huge backlash. The advert, which has been removed from the Clicks website, described the natural hair of a black woman as “dry, damaged, frizzy and dull” and the hair of a white woman as “fine, flat and normal”.

The retailer issued an apology for the advert and all staff responsible for publishing it have been suspended. An unidentified senior executive at Clicks, who was responsible for the offensive advert, resigned amid the controversy.

TimesLIVE reported that at least 425 Clicks stores were affected by the shutdown call led by the EFF, and seven stores were damaged.

In the parody cover of Master KG and Nomcebo's international hit Jerusalema, Scott takes a dig at Malema, saying he will “fight for your hair, but he doesn't care about you or me or corruption or GBV”.

In the song, Scott said Malema expected the Clicks manager to be white, but it turned out, according to The Kiffness, that the person is black. However, according to Clicks Group CEO Vikesh Ramsunder, the manager is coloured.

Ramsunder told CapeTalk that the digital team which approved the content for the advert included two black employees, two white employees and a coloured manager.

Scott's dig at Malema comes after he referred to the Clicks advert as a “mistake”. 

“Given Clicks made a mistake, imagine the EFF in power,” he said. “If they’re calling for 880 stores to be closed and 15,000 employees to lose their jobs over one mistake, imagine what they’d do in power. Scary stuff.”

Watch the video below.

Reactions

At the time of publishing this story, Scott's video has garnered over 3,600 likes on YouTube. On Facebook, at the time of publishing, the story was shared over 39,000 times.

Here's a glimpse of what people said on The Kiffness's Facebook page.

"Great parody; much ado about nothing ... it's all hot h/air and bubbles at the click of a chick," wrote Susan Scott.

"I think you are awesome," wrote Rose Barnes.

"Brilliant my buddy, I was waiting for this," wrote Gavin Lamprecht.

"You made my day kiffness," wrote Yaasseen Dollie.

"Well said," said Elizabeth Paget.

However, not everyone was impressed, with some saying he missed the reason behind the anger over the Clicks advert.

Here is a snapshot of what people said on Twitter.

Note: This article's headline was amended for clarification as it had referred to "thumbs down", which some readers understood to be a reference to likes on social media and not criticism of the video as expressed by social media users. The article was also updated to include some comments from fans who liked the video.