The Kiffness: An Interview Before Park Electric

The Kiffness are one of the acts who will be performing at Park Electric this weekend at Fort Schanskop in Pretoria this weekend and their performance promises to be one of the highlights of the event.

This Electro act from Cape Town were nominated for a Best Music Video SAMA in 2017, nominated for the Best Pop Album & Best Producer SAMAs in 2015 and have had 7 Top 10 singles on 5FM. Their song “Where Are You Going?” reached #1 on the MTV Dance Charts.

I recently had a chat to The Kiffness about their upcoming show at Park Electric (which will be the first all-electro edition of Park Acoustics). This is what he had to say:

How did you come up with the name “The Kiffness”?

I can’t believe no one has ever asked me this question before. Finally, I can tell my story! I got very drunk one night and woke up with a mysterious tattoo on my ass cheek. It just said “KIFF”. I then remembered that my chommie had a birthmark on the exact same spot on his ass that loosely spelled “NESS”.

I said “hey brother, can I put my ass cheek next to yours?” He was like “nort bru, that’s weird” I was like “Nooit charna, just trust me”

And so we put our ass cheeks next to each other and there were sparks flying man. The sparks travelled into the air and exploded into a cloud of smoke that said “I HOPE AN INTERVIEWER ASKS ME ONE DAY HOW I GOT THE NAME OF MY SUPER SUCCESSFUL BAND” and then I thought to myself “this is weird message”.

It was only much later that I realized I made this whole story up & I was looking at my brother’s email address (which contained the phrase “kiffness”) and then I said “I will call my band The Kiffness”.

What has The Kiffness been up to lately?

We have just been doing lank gigs & making some new tunes. After playing Kirstenbosch earlier in March, I’ve decided that I’ve pretty much ticked every box on the list of gigs I would like to do in South Africa & so next step is to mission to Europe later this year to see what else is out there.

Who would win a celebrity death match between Kanye West and Drake and why?

Drake would probably kill Kanye with his sadness.

What is the funniest thing you’ve ever experienced during a live set?

A few weeks ago we did a charity show at a home for mentally handicapped people. We had a great show and as we finished the show people shouted for an encore. We were going to leave it at that, but then the backtrack for “White Privilege” started playing and we couldn’t back out. I felt weird about it, but it ended up going down pretty well.

What can we expect from The Kiffness at Park Electric?

Some lekka doef doef music with some kiff live horns & synths on top. There’s a lot of crowd interaction, lots of great musicianship & most importantly we just have a lot of fun performing. We’ve been lucky enough to play all kinds of shows over the years, so we’ve managed to figure out what works and what doesn’t for pretty much any environment. With that being said, it’s often weird being a live electronic act. You’re not quite a DJ, not quite a band. So it’s pretty cool to be part of a line-up that celebrates live electronic acts – we’re really looking forward to it. It’s a big honour.

I’d like to thank The Kiffness for this interview and I wish him all of the best with his set at Park Electric this coming weekend and his future musical endeavours.

Get more info about the event on the Park Acoustics website.

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