"Eating the Cats"

South African turns Trump slogan into YouTube hit

In the video for the song (see below), the artist plays excerpts from the TV duel between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.(Bild: YouTube.com/The Kiffness)

Unusual musical hit: South African musician David Scott, aka "The Kiffness", has landed a hit song with his setting of former US President Donald Trump's "Eating the Cats" statement (see video above). 

The 26-year-old built a two-minute reggae song around Trump's statement that migrants in the US city of Springfield were eating pets, which has been viewed millions of times on YouTube since the previous week. It is also particularly popular in Austria, where it reached number 3 in the YouTube charts at the weekend, according to kworb.net.

"People of Springfield, don't eat my cat. Why would you do that, eat something else," rhymes The Kiffness in the video, which shows him with headphones and a microphone in front of a mini-keyboard.

In the video for the song (see above), the artist plays clips from the TV duel between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.(Bild: YouTube.com/The Kiffness)

Dog and cat howl at the end
In the split screen, Trump can be seen repeatedly saying his eponymous sentence - which has now been set to music several times by other YouTube artists. At the end of the video, dogs and cats also have their turn, being "howled" at by the singer.

The video was originally published on X, where it reached 9.8 million views and 100,000 likes on Monday. The video was viewed 2.7 million times on YouTube and also climbed to the top of the Spotify and iTunes music streaming platforms - for example, in Sweden it was the 11th most-played iTunes song - according to figures from the specialist website kworb.net.

Vienna performance on October 29
The Kiffness, who will be performing at the Arena in Vienna on September 29, has announced that he will donate all streaming revenue from the song to an animal shelter in Springfield, Ohio. By Sunday, almost 7000 dollars (around 6300 euros) had been raised, the musician announced on X. On Monday, he also countered media reports that he had political intentions with his song.

In an "open letter to news agencies reporting on my song 'Eating the Cats'", he emphasized that he was only interested in raising money for the animal shelter in Springfield. Anyone who claims otherwise is "lying" and wants to divide public opinion, emphasized the compatriot of X owner Elon Musk. "I want to unite everyone behind a common cause," Scott emphasized.

This is not the musician's first charitable action. After the Russian aggression against Ukraine, he released a remix of a Ukrainian folk song and donated all proceeds to the Ukrainian army. He does not always show political restraint. He has repeatedly taken aim at South African politics in songs.