AKA was an African rap great but his legacy will always be grossly tainted
The memorials are pouring out but they're excluding a certain toxic side
In our latest op-ed, Dennis Ade Peter breaks down the conflicting feelings surrounding the death of South African rapper AKA who recently passed away. While AKA is revered and respected for his magnanimous contributions to the industry, his passing is shaded by serious allegations of sexual abuse. Trigger warning.
On Friday, February 10th, news of the passing of South African rap artist and entertainment entrepreneur, Kiernan Forbes (AKA) broke across multiple news outlets and on social media. According to reports, AKA and close friend Tebello “Tibz” Motsoane were shot dead on Florida road, one of Durban’s entertainment hubs, on their way out of a restaurant. A disturbing CCTV video footage showing this has since leaked online.
Immediately AKA’s passing made it to social media, the disbelief was evident. Amidst the shock, tributes started rolling in, mostly centred on reverence for his artistry and cultural impact—and rightly so. AKA is undeniably one of the most successful rap artists of his generation, a superstar that enjoyed parochial domination for much of his career and reached continental ubiquity through headline hit songs and collaborative efforts with artists from across Africa.
In West Africa, AKA gained popularity with bonafide hit songs that enjoyed heavy airplay and more than a handful of guest appearances on songs with Nigerian and Ghanaian artists. Even with a mere surface level of rap music from South Africa in the 2010s, it’s impossible not to know AKA. I don’t think my knowledge of AKA and his music was surface level. Before the Burna Boy-assisted “All Eyes on Me” brought him closer to Nigerians as the mid-2010s rolled along, AKA was easily one of my favourite rappers from the rainbow nation, and I was keen on most of the work he shared during his lifetime.
My first encounter with AKA was borne out of curiosity. In 2012, M.I Abaga released the second instalment in his ‘Illegal Music’ mixtape series and, in addition to being a bar-fest that excited a rap-giddy teenager, it was packed with guests that showed out. One of them was the late South African rap icon HHP on “Superhuman,” whose introspective verse remains as bracing as ever. By this time, my knowledge of South African rap music was sparse at best, mostly limited to the CD of Skwatta Kamp’s ‘Mkhukhu Funkshen’ I stumbled upon in an older cousin’s room. That HHP verse nudged me on one random afternoon: I opened the browser on my Nokia 5250 and googled South African rappers.
I can’t remember what song by which artist I downloaded first, but I can recall downloading the two AKA songs I found on a blog where I regularly downloaded music then. (Illegal? Yes. But it was the blog era, keep the judgements.) “Victory Lap” and “Bang” were the two songs, and even though I could count the number of South African rap artists I was familiar with on one hand, I quickly convinced myself that AKA was the best South African rap artist in existence. Both songs are braggadocios, with the rapper embodying impeccable cool and contagious confidence over chunky, bass-heavy beats.
“Victory Lap” especially did it for me: I thought the way he rapped “Michael Jackson couldn’t be as dangerous, shit happens/Armed with the paint brush, hope you get the picture” was one of the smoothest things I’d ever heard from an African rap artist. It wasn’t until the following year—in 2013—that I would listen to ‘Altar Ego’, the debut album that housed the song. I had cajoled my parents into buying me a Samsung phone that had space for a memory card, and that meant I went crazy with downloading songs and entire projects. I downloaded each song on ‘Altar Ego’ from whatever blog had them and I listened intently, repeatedly; by the time AKA gained popularity with my friends via “All Eyes on Me,” I gladly called them latecomers.
Between 2014 and 2020, AKA released four projects and I listened to each of them intently. Even though I can’t say I was fond of each new project, my admiration for AKA as a rap artist remained. As I got into other rap stars such as Kwesta and Stogie T and Nasty C and K.O and FLVME and many, many more South African rappers, I wasn’t exactly describing AKA as the best South African rap artist in existence, but his brilliance was never lost on me.
One of my favourite times as an AKA supporter came in 2015 when he sent out warning shots to several rivals and infamously capped long-time arch-rival, Cassper Nyovest, with the classic diss track, “Composure.” Amongst the Nigerian hip-hop heads niche corner in Twitter that year, everyone had to pick a side in a beef that was an entire region away. I almost sat on the fence because I loved Cassper’s smash hit, “Doc Shebeleza,” but I went with the guy that served as a major entry point into SA rap and I felt vindicated by my choice when the general consensus emerged. AKA delivered a Takeover-style hit, there was no Ether-level response.
In hindsight, the execution and acceptance of “Composure” wasn’t happening in a vacuum. AKA was a rapper at the peak of his powers. The year before, he had dropped ‘Levels’, the sophomore album that quickly eclipsed the critical and commercial bar set by his classic debut LP. In 2017, he teamed up with Anatii for ‘Be Careful What You Wish For’, arguably the high watermark for his powers as a lyricist. By 2018, when he dropped the autotune-filled ‘Touch My Blood’, there were some mutters about his stylistic choices but it remains a statement piece from an artist unwilling to play within set boundaries.
Musically, AKA had an affinity for maximalist choices, and it was always fitting for an artist who was comfortable being larger than life. The man-made rap star music with the curatorial ear of a pop savant, and the beats always had to thump and glisten to aggrandise every rap or sung line about his greatness, the focus of the bulk of his work. Along with exploring romantic connections from his own POV—sometimes to unnecessarily petty lengths—there wasn’t that much thematic variety in AKA’s work, but he found ways to be intriguing through project-defining wrinkles in sound.
‘Levels’ was a blaring electro-rap affair from a rap superstar assuming the mantle of authority, ‘Be Careful What You Wish For’ honed in on groovy Trap, ‘Touch My Blood’ pulled in a variety of ‘80s sounds like Boogie and South African Pop, while the late 2020 EP ‘Bhovamania’ is suffused with varying styles of SA dance music. For me, the latter mostly fell flat. It was the first time AKA sounded predictable and barely kept me intrigued; “Casino” with Sho Madjozi and FLVME and “Finessin’” were the only songs that I liked.
At the 10th edition of the South African Hip Hop Awards held in December 2021, AKA was one of the sixteen nominees in the Artist of the Decade category. While his résumé made him a shoo-in for that category, I was deeply uncomfortable with the possibility of the rapper picking up such a grand honour. By that time, AKA had fallen way out of favour with me and it wasn’t just because I didn’t like his 2020 release.
– TRIGGER WARNING –
On April 11, 2021, AKA’s then fiancée Anele “Nelli” Tembe passed away under controversial circumstances. According to reports, Nelli died of an apparent suicide, jumping from the tenth floor of the Cape Town hotel where she and the rapper had lodged while on vacation. About a month after, a clip of AKA breaking down a door to get to Nelli in their Johannesburg home went viral. At the time, there were allegations of emotional abuse and physical assault playing an integral role in the saddening passing Nelli, and AKA was being alleged as the villain.
The clip was chilling. Since I watched the video, seeing AKA looking rabid with bloodshot eyes and in attack mode against the women he was planning to spend the rest of his life with, I wasn’t able to just view the man as a rapper I really enjoyed their bars. It’s probably why I was conflicted by the news of his passing last Friday and the overwhelming show of love that I found on my timeline. Now, I’m not saying I was gleeful about AKA’s death, neither am I remotely thrilled by its violent nature, but the abuse allegations and the evidence supporting it made me disinterested in tweeting anything reverential to his legacy as a rap artist.
At the time, within a week of the clip nodding to his allegedly abusive behaviour towards Nelli, AKA granted an interview with Thembekile Mrototo in a bid to set the record straight and possibly exonerate himself from any wrongdoing. For me, none of those aims were achieved from watching that interview. If anything, details like his convenient absence when Nelli hurled herself to the ground, going to his friend in the next room instead being by her side right away, clearly using her mental issues as an out, and just the generally toxic energy exuded during the hour-plus interview sealed my personal cancellation of AKA.
Aa a journalist and writer, I’m an advocate for cancel culture in music. Maybe not a staunch one in the absolute sense, but I firmly believe in artists being shut out for doing some terrible shit. In cancelling an artist, though, I understanding the innate complexity that’s tied to debates about separating artists from their art, and just even many African societies’ willingness to gloss over the gross failings of artists—mostly male ones. I believe artists are intrinsically tied to their work because, as with any form of art, there’s a piece of the creator’s soul in every line rapped and every note sung. Basically, if you’ve done some terrible stuff that cannot and should not be justified, the music can and should be kept at bay.
“We live in a very forgiving country,” South African media personality MacG said on his podcast back in 2021 when the viral clip made its way to the internet, using the remark as the basis for his argument that AKA could come clean if he had played any part in Nelli’s death and wouldn’t be cancelled. It’s an indictment on the values of a society that will let such a heinous act slide, and it’s even more worrying considering the crisis of gender-based violence in South Africa.
Till his passing, AKA never owned any responsibility for Nelli’s passing, stating his innocence and eventually moving on. For me, that clip is the first thing my mind associates with AKA and I immediately committed to never playing his music again after I saw the video. The internet is naturally unforgiving but when it comes to our real-time society, we can never agree on who should be cancelled. For me, I believe most of cancel culture is a personal thing, and in AKA’s situation, it was a personal decision that I’ve since held on to despite the rap artist trying to make amends before his life was cut short unexpectedly—I’m not a fan of redemption tours.
Last year, AKA teamed up with Nasty C for “Lemons (Lemonade)” and it was certified gold by the Recording Industry of South Africa (RiSA) within a month of its release. “WE BACK IN BUSINESS BABYYY!!!!!!” he tweeted at the time. Like MacG had stated, all had been forgiven and AKA was back to his rap superstar ways. I’ll admit that I did click on the YouTube link earlier this year after being badgered by the algorithm for months, and it took less than a minute for me to be overwhelmed with guilt for listening to the music of an alleged abuser.
That’s where I am right now: I’m not happy that AKA has passed away but I will be overwhelmed by guilt if I join in the ongoing hagiography that’s been happening in the last couple of days. Even with the impending, posthumous arrival of ‘Mass Country’, the album he’d been teasing for months, I don’t know that I will be listening intently. I get it, he was undeniably a great rap artist with even more to offer, one that set his own trends and consistently moved with a remarkable sense of self-conviction. At the same time, there’s no erasing the horrible allegations he gladly evaded accountability for. I get it, it’s not dignified to speak ill of the dead. At the same time, I firmly believe that death shouldn’t erase a person’s sins and instantly cast them as saints.
Press Statement: Mass Country #LongLiveSupaMega pic.twitter.com/K9etWUSmIx
— AKA (@akaworldwide) February 16, 2023
It’s fine if you choose to believe AKA wasn’t an abuser while he was alive. In addition to that clip, there’s also a pattern of morally questionable decisions, such as cheating on his pregnant girlfriend, allegedly cheating with the partner of a collaborator and friend, and allegedly intimidating another woman he had affairs with. While we mourn his passing, these are serious allegations and events that many people should not be wilfully ignorant of, or chose to forgive and forget. For me, I don’t know that I will ever forget the toxic side of AKA, it’s too visceral for me to ignore. Normally that would make him an artist who was a deeply flawed person, but that’s a kind description. Kiernan Forbes was a great rap artist but his legacy will remain grossly tainted by his alleged toxicity.
ICYMI: ON THE SHAPE SHIFTING IMAGES OF THE ALLEGED ABUSERS IN AFRICAN ENTERTAINMENT
Tems Partners With Hennessy For Leading Vibe Initiative
Launching in Lagos, Nigeria, this event pioneered by Tems marks the beginning of a continent-wide movement to...
In July, Tems announced the Leading Vibe Initiative (LVI) to support women in music and the creative space on their journey to make a mark in their fields and create space for other women in those industries. Born from Tems’ journey as a self-taught artist with a focus on driving change, the initiative offers training, mentorship, industry access, and community for women in music in Africa.
After a rigorous selection process for its inaugural cohort, Hennessy will join the two-time Grammy Award-winning star to celebrate the launch of the Leading Vibe (LVI) Initiative in Lagos, Nigeria. Held from August 8 to 9, 2025, the two-day event is the beginning of a bold new chapter in Hennessy’s long-standing commitment to music and culture in Africa.
“I’m excited to partner with Hennessy in bringing this initiative to life, supporting talented young women in music as they find their voices, embrace their power, and shape the future of the industry across Africa and beyond,” Tems said about the partnership.
The Leading Vibe Initiative aims to champion the next generation of female artists, producers, songwriters, and music professionals, increasing representation within all areas of music across the continent and beyond.
With Hennessy as lead partner, this ambitious program kicks off with an immersive event in Lagos featuring curated workshops, networking moments, and panel discussions led by top-tier talent from across the global and African music industries.
“Her vision, talent, and purpose align deeply with Hennessy’s legacy of championing those who push boundaries and redefine the world around them. We’re honored to support the Leading Vibe Initiative and to continue empowering African communities and cultures,” said Vincent Montalescot, Hennessy Global Chief Marketing Officer.
Hennessy’s partnership with Tems builds on the brand’s decades-long history of supporting music and artistic expression globally and on the continent. From Hip-Hop to Afrobeats, Hennessy continues to stand beside the artists and communities that shape culture.
In Africa, the Maison has deepened its commitment through meaningful initiatives like In the Paint and now, with the Leading Vibe Initiative, is taking a focused step toward amplifying women’s voices in music. With the Lagos launch as a powerful first step, the Leading Vibe Initiative will expand across Africa and globally, creating a cross-continental network of empowered women ready to shape the future of African music.
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True Clrs Want People To Dance
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One of the more pressing topics of discussion amongst party-goers today is the curious question of why people don’t dance at gatherings anymore. While partying, theoretically, includes other activities like talking to strangers, getting drinks, and conducting business, it is primarily geared towards dancing and living in the moment.
These days, however, there seems to be more emphasis on these other activities than actual partying. People are doom scrolling on the dancefloor or are more occupied with trying to take the perfect selfie. Enter: True Clrs, a travelling party series launched by Adeola Kofoworade and Menab Tesfu that aims to bring the dance back to the parties by centering on the richness of African sound and the communities that love it.
“We found that there were a lot of parties in Dallas that had cultures that didn’t encourage dancing or interaction between customers,” Kofoworade tells The NATIVE about the inspiration for True Clrs over a Google Meet conversation in July. “Seeing how parties were being thrown in L.A., New York and other places in Europe, we thought to bring that idea here to Texas.”
Since its inception in 2023, True Clrs has hosted over 15 editions of its travelling party series across cities in the United States. In addition to a dedicated real-life following that engages with their series, they have also cultivated a robust online presence thanks to their meticulous branding and active CRLS YouTube page that features various thrilling DJ sets.
Ahead of the latest Houston edition of True Clrs, which featured ODUMODUBLVCK and Sarz headlining the Global Sounds Stage and others like Native SOUND SYSTEM’s DJ Sholz, Lowkey Ade, and Khulumars on DJ duties, we caught up with Adeola Kofoworade to discuss how they’ve managed to position True Clrs as the go-to party series in Texas, what makes them unique, and what their long-term plans are.
What inspired True Clrs?
We originally started True Clrs about two years ago because we noticed that there was a space in Dallas that we could infiltrate. We found that there were a lot of parties in Dallas that had cultures that didn’t encourage dancing or interaction between customers. That’s something pretty notable down here in the South. In clubs, there are a lot of sections and no big dance floors, so people are stuck in their sections without really interacting with other people. Seeing how parties were being thrown in L.A., New York and other places in Europe, we thought to bring that idea here to Texas. At first, we started with Afrobeats and Amapiano-centred parties, but then we started branching out to other genres as well.
How have you been able to position True Clrs as one of the go-to diaspora-focused party series in the U.S, especially in Texas?
We try to be innovative. We always try to make every event better than the last one. So if you came to one of our events the previous month, we try to switch things up and make sure you have a better experience the next time you come. We do this by booking notable DJs from around the country and even around the world. We also started booking a lot more talents. Last year, we had Lancey Foux; we had Sholz, who brought ODUMODUBLVCK; and we also had Skyla Tyla. This year, we’re looking to do more of that so we can always give our audience a notable experience.
How do you balance catering to the African diaspora with appealing to a broader audience that might be unfamiliar with the music and experience?
There are a couple of ways we try to do this. First, since we have monthly events, we try to switch between different genres and vibes. So let’s say, one month we have an Afrobeats and Amapiano party, the next month we could switch to this concept that we call the R&B rave. In the R&B rave, we basically play all types of R&B music, whether it’s old, contemporary or alternative, and we curate a rave-like setting.
We also run this concept where we have like two or three stages playing different genres. We could have one stage playing Amapiano, the other R&B and the other more global sounds. I guess it just depends on the venue we use. But we’re able to offer different experiences even at the same party.
Are there any other unique elements that set the True Clrs experience apart from other nightlife events?
One of our main appeals is recording DJ content. I know DJ content has become saturated recently, but what separates us is that a lot of our content is very genuine. It’s not made up or staged. We get real-time reactions from people. A lot of the time, people don’t even know they’re being filmed. Our content makes us notable, and it’s helped push our brand forward.
Since you began True Clrs, how have you been able to cultivate a strong online presence as well as a thriving community in real life?
With our online presence, it’s really been our content that has helped put us out there. We’ve had a couple of reels or YouTube sets go viral, and that’s definitely helped our online presence. Also, just being the kind of people we are, we take our time when it comes to branding True Clrs. We get a lot of feedback from people regarding our content, and we take it into account moving forward. For our real-life community, my partner and I had already been heavily involved in the entertainment space and the African community here before we began True Clrs. So we got a lot of support when we first started, and we’ve just kept building from there.
What’s the long-term vision for True Clrs? Are there any plans to expand into other U.S. cities or even international markets?
Definitely. Last year, we had our first international event in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. My partner was up there for a holiday, and we decided to throw an event there. In the future, we do plan to expand to other countries, whether in Africa or Europe. With our connections with talents like Lancey Foux, Skyla Tyla, we’re also looking to see if we can put together festivals. That’s what’s on the horizon for True Colors.
What would you say to someone who’s never been to a True Clrs party? What should they expect, and why should they come?
Our goal is community curation through music. So what I would tell someone who’s never been to a True Clrs party is they should come with an open mind. They should trust our DJs because they might hear songs they’ve never heard before and still be able to have a good time. Also, while we don’t force people to interact, we encourage people to interact and dance while listening to good DJs.
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Best New Music: Tiwa Savage and Skepta Are Stuck In A Loop On “On The Low”
After over a decade helming some of the most romantic cuts in Afropop, Tiwa Savage’s dalliance with R&B is...
There are only a few artists in Afropop with the range, longevity, and lustre that Tiwa Savage has. Since she emerged on the Nigerian music scene in 2011, Ms. Savage has set an inimitable standard in terms of platforming the point of view of women at the pinnacle of Afropop, working to show that women are multi-dimensional and layered, capable of going through the motions of joy, angst, distress, and optimism just as much as the next person. By unapologetically leaning into the very minutiae of what makes her tick as a woman, she’s become a fan favourite and an undisputed legend of the genre.
Impressively, she’s done this while making great strides sonically. From the throbbing afropop of ‘Once Upon A Time’ to the swaggering house-inflected triumph of ‘R.E.D,’ and the dense polyrhythmic structure of ‘Celia,’ Tiwa Savage has continued to tincture her R&B-adjacent sound with influences from home and abroad. It is an accurate reflection of Tiwa Savage as a person: grounded by her Lagos heritage but shaped by global influences. For the last six months, she has been talking up her forthcoming fourth album, describing it as a full-throttle return to the R&B sound that was her stock in trade before she returned to Nigeria in 2011 to establish herself as an Afropop powerhouse.
In April, she released the emotive “You4Me,” clearly establishing the direction for her new album, ‘This One Is Personal.’ Produced by Mystro Sugar, “You4Me” put a fresh spin on Tamia’s ’90s classic “So Into You” with percussion work by Magicsticks adding a decidedly Afropop sheen to the song. Upping the ante, Tiwa Savage returned with “On The Low,” a delightful sung-rap bop featuring British-Nigerian rapper, Skepta. Like “You4Me” before it, “On The Low” is steeped in R&B tradition, finding Tiwa Savage pining after a love that feels like a taboo or forbidden pleasure. Produced by Rymez and Mystro, it is a surefire pointer that Tiwa Savage wasn’t joking when she said ‘This One Is Personal’ had overt R&B influences.
After over a decade helming some of the most romantic cuts in Afropop, Tiwa Savage’s dalliance with R&B is helping to propel her artistry to new heights. Just as the soundtrack for ‘Water & Garri,’ her debut as a filmmaker, pared down universal emotions like longing, desire, and anxiety into digestible bits on standouts like “I Need You,” “Lost Time,” “Love O,” her latest song chronicles the intangibles of a romance that’s quite not out in the open. “I know you want to link on the low / We have to stay discreet, you don’t know,” she sweetly intones on the song’s hook, clearly obfuscating the true status of the relationship but revealing just enough to let her listeners know that the dynamic of this relationship is not the usual.
It’s a premise that is established from the opening lines of the song when Skepta breezily starts with an offer to travel, presumably after being unavailable for a while. “Yeah, I’m off tour, we should celebrate / Dedicate some time for you, baby, it’s a date,” he says. It sets off a sequence where Tiwa Savage admits to being annoyed by the complexities of this relationship.
Still, there’s something about the thrills of these tenuous romances that keeps one tethered to them, and Tiwa Savage manages to capture the dilemma of the situation when she sings, “Boy, you make me stressed, you don’t know / Then you send me sweet texts on the low.” Her measured delivery and tonal inflections lend an air of believability to the story that would be inaccessible in lesser hands.
It helps that even as she revisits her R&B origins, the singer still maintains a strong connection to the sonic references that made her an Afropop juggernaut. There is seriously impressive percussion across “On The Low” with enough Yoruba ad-libs sprinkled across to remind any doubters that this is a Nigerian star paying homage to an elemental part of her evolution without losing touch with her roots. It sets the stage for This One Is Personal’ perfectly.
Listen to “On The Low” here.
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