AKA is shot and killed in Durban, South Africa

Why it matters

Kiernan Forbes, who recorded as AKA in Cape Town and across South Africa, was shot and killed outside Wish on Florida Road in Durban, South Africa, on the night of February 10, 2023. He was 35. His friend Tebello "Tibz" Motsoane was shot and killed in the same incident. The case has had multiple arrests but no convictions as of 2025. AKA was, by general consensus, the face of post-2010 South African hip-hop. His catalog (Altar Ego in 2011, Levels in 2014, Touch My Blood in 2018, Mass Country in 2023) had repeatedly topped the South African charts and had crossed into broader African and international rap conversations. The South African rap scene that he came up in and helped consolidate (Kwesta, Nasty C, Cassper Nyovest, Riky Rick, Tumi Molekane, Sho Madjozi) had developed across the 2010s as one of the most commercially significant non-US-and-UK rap markets in the world. AKA's death was, in South Africa specifically, treated with the kind of national-mourning coverage usually reserved for political figures. He was 35. The South African hip-hop scene is still processing what his death meant. You should hear his catalog. The voice was distinctive.