By: Jemimah Chungu
On February 10th, 2023, a famous rapper from South Africa named AKA was shot and killed. AKA, whose real name was Kiernan Jarryd Forbes, was also known as Supa Mega. He was with his friend, a chef and entrepreneur named Tebello ‘Tibz’ Motsoane, when they were shot in the streets of Durban, South Africa.
The shooting happened outside a popular restaurant in Durban. AKA had posted on Instagram and Twitter that he was going to perform at a club as part of his birthday celebration, revealing his location.
AKA was a successful rapper who won awards for his music, including best hip-hop album for the Metro FM in 2011. He was even a special guest at WWE live events in 2018. He declared himself the Greatest African hip-hop-Afrobeat artist of all-time. After his death, AKA was elevated to national hero status, but his funeral was not given state Honors by South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Like many rappers, AKA had conflicts with other hip-hop and Afrobeat artists, such as South Africa’s Casper Nyovest and Nigeria’s Burna Boy. After a successful collaboration with Burna Boy on the hit song ‘All Eyes on Me’, the two had an ugly Twitter feud during South Africa’s xenophobia clash in 2019.
In 2021, AKA was involved in a controversy when his 22-year-old fiancée, Anele Tembe, allegedly committed suicide by jumping off the 10th floor of a hotel in Cape Town. Her family and others did not accept Anele’s death as a suicide. During Tembe’s funeral, her father, who is also a renowned businessman, Moses Tembe, said she was not suicidal and opposed to the said cause of her death.
It was not until videos of the couple fighting leaked on social media that the incidence of Anele’s death took a different viewpoint. In the videos, the couple was seen arguing, and AKA was seen breaking down doors. AKA denied being abusive or violent towards Anele and produced a love song ‘Tears Run Dry’ in her honor. His team proclaimed Anele’s death changed him.
AKA was not prosecuted for Anele’s death as there was no proof to do so before he died. However, a letter written by the Tembe family’s lawyer indicated that AKA had a hand in Anele’s death.
In a CCTV footage that went viral, a masked man in a white sweater approached AKA and gunned him down with two bullets. Security authorities confirmed that AKA’s gunning was an arranged assassination. It has not been officially certain as to who killed AKA. Speculations arose that Anele’s family could be behind the rapper’s death, but the Tembe family denied the allegations.
AKA seemingly prophesized his death in his latest record. His song ‘Diary’ is one of the songs that were most talked about with lyrics; “I cannot live here, I cannot sit still, I cannot rebuild, promises unfulfilled here. I don’t want to die ’cause if I go silent, Who gon’ feed all my children? “Nothing feels real no more. How do I fill this hole in my spirit? I cannot hear clichés no more. Living my low life. What did you score me? I was on top of your pyramid; that’s when the pastor told me,” AKA raps in the song. “If I’m getting killed, it’s them.”
According to psychic medium, Diva D’Andrea, AKA’s cellphone could give police insight into the events leading up to his death. D’Andrea initially mentioned that a woman alerted AKA’s killers to his whereabouts.
Forbes was put to rest on February 18th, 2023, at the age of 35 in Westpark cemetery, Johannesburg. At the beginning of March, 2023, #justiceforAKA trended on social media where his fans were demanding justice for his gunning.
