began his career as a singer songwriter, performing at folk clubs and university campuses across South Africa in the early 80's, singing satirical songs. In his stage performances he portrayed himself as a rural everyman who travelled the dusty roads of small town South Africa with an old bicycle and a cheap guitar. His first album, Bakgat! released in 1980, was banned in its entirety by the SABC as it was considered too political and vulgar for the South African ear. Despite this, he has released 17 albums and had been awarded 10 gold and one platinum record by the mid-80's. In 1986 he teamed up with Taliep Petersen to write their first musical called District Six, which was an enormous success and they followed this with another 5 musicals, the most recent being Kat and the Kings, which was performed on the West End and Broadway and won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Musical in 1999. The year 2000 has seen David returning to the stage, and writing his first Afrikaans musical, Die Ballade van Koos Sas.