He began his music career as a singer/songwriter, performing at folk clubs and campus concerts across South Africa in the mid 1970’s, singing satrirical songs.

In 1983 David was contracted by Volkswagen South Africa to link his idiosyncratic South African image to their microbus. This was the beginning of a television and print campaign that won the hearts of South Africans, made David Kramer into a household name and was to continue for the next thirteen years. Probably the longest running celebrity endorsement this country has seen.

In 1990 David collaborated with Paul Slabolepszy in THE EYES OF THEIR WHITES, a portrait of the right wing psyche in South Africa. It was directed by Bobby Heaney.

 In this production Kramer performed many of his songs including Going Away, Mambas in the Gutters, Driver Driver and Suburban Dream. They performed to critical acclaim on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and it was filmed by the BBC.

In 1990 he and Renaye Kramer became partners in an entertainment complex housed in a historic building in Cape Town’s Waterfront development. Here they opened the DOCK RD THEATRE. Ninety percent of the work staged during the six years of its existence was original South African writing and this vision was pursued without any state subsidy or grant.

FAIRYLAND was the first musical production to be staged at the Dock Rd Theatre. It won the FNB Vita Award for Best Musical and played to capacity houses all over South Africa. More than a 1000 performances and three and a half years later it closed in Cape Town.

While Fairyland was running David and Taliep wrote a musical called POISON which tackled the serious social problems of gangsterism and drug abuse on the Cape Flats. In a more light-hearted vein David and Taliep also wrote a musical about the singers of District Six that impersonated famous Americans, called CROONERS.

In 2001, Kramer presented a small show at the KKNK, called KAROO KITAAR BLUES. It was a concert presenting the eccentric guitar styles of the Karoo - unique finger-picking and tunings of a marginalised people who live in isolated and impoverished areas and play the “ou liedjies”. This show has now been seen all over South Africa, where it has been performed to sold out houses in every venue. A live CD of the performance has been recorded and the show was awarded 2 FNB Vita Awards. A 90 minute documentary directed by Liza Key about these musicians and David's work with them has been made and has been shown at film festivals in Europe, the UK and the USA. KAROO KITAAR BLUES recently won the Golden Reel Award for Best Musical Documentary at the 2006 Tiburon International Film Festival in California. It has now been released on DVD.

David has written an Afrikaans musical, DIE BALLADE VAN KOOS SAS, which explores the trade in “Bushmen” skeletons during the early 1900’s, and won the De Kat Herrie Award at the KKNK festival for this production.

He has worked with the very popular stand-up comedian Marc Lottering for a number of years, having directed 3 of his shows: From the Cape Flats with Love, Big Stakes and Slap Chips and HALLELUJAH!.

GHOEMA was his last collaboration with Taliep Petersen in which they explored early South African history and celebrated the musical heritage of the Cape. It was written and directed by Kramer, with musical direction by Taliep Petersen. The production was nominated for 7 Fleur du Cap awards . David won for Best Set Design and shared the award for Best Lighting Design with Gert du Preez. At the 2007 NALEDI Awards in Johannesburg, GHOEMA won 3 Naledi's: Best Production of a Musical, Best Choreography (Loukmaan Adams) and Best Musical Direction (Taliep Petersen)

As a tribute to his 20 year partnership with Taliep Petersen, and to honour his memory, a production called THE KRAMER PETERSEN SONGBOOK was staged at the Baxter Theatre for the Dec/Jan summer season and ran to sold out houses from the very first performance.

In Dec 2007 David was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Cape Town.

In January 2008 David was able to restage BALLADE VAN KOOS SAS as a full scale musical. This was as a result of it being commissioned by the Suidoosterfees which takes place annually in Cape Town. David won the Suidoosterfees Skouerklop award at the festival for his work on this production.

In March 2008 David performed concerts at the KKNK to launch his CD HEMEL & AARDE and received a KANNA award for Best Contemporary Music Performance.