By Ahmad Muto
South African rapper Kiernan Jarryd Forbes, known by his stage name AKA, will be buried in a private ceremony on Saturday, February 18, 2023.
The announcement was shared by his family on his official social media pages on Tuesday, February 14, 2023.
There will be a memorial service on Friday, February 17, 2023, that will only be attended by those with tickets, but will also be livestreamed on the rapper’s YouTube page.
AKA was shot dead at close range on his birthday on Friday, February 10, 2023, Florida, Durban, South Africa with his friend Tebello Motsoane, who was a chef and also his former manager.
Being one of the countries with the highest gun murder rates in the world, several efforts have been made to mitigate the vice, including starting charity organisations like Gun Free South Africa that put the number of murders in the country daily at 30 people.
At 35, AKA was celebrated across the globe with a number of local and international awards.
He is survived by one child he fathered with DJ Zinhle during the course of their on again, off again relationship that started in 2014 up to 2015, and 2018 up to 2020.
One of AKA’s most intriguing feuds was with Nigerian singer Burna Boy with whom he was as thick as thieves.
Nigerians at one point even joked that Burna had become South African and South Africans replied that they were looking for a tribe to adopt him.
However, the two men fell out in 2019 after a spate of xenophobic attacks meted against Nigerians in South Africa.
The artistes clashed with each other on social media and vowed to clash physically if they ever met. Fortunately, they never met, but also sadly, never reconciled.
The pair recorded over five songs together before their friendship permanently soured.
In Uganda, AKA was most notably friends with rappers Navio and Keko.
