Kiernan Forbes, one of South Africa’s most popular rappers known by the stage name AKA, was shot dead as he left a restaurant in Durban, in the southeast of the country, his family announced on Saturday.
“It is with extreme sadness that we learn of the passing of our beloved 35-year-old son,” his parents, Tony and Lynn Forbes, wrote on their Twitter account.
AKA was killed Friday night, along with another man at his side, as they left a restaurant and walked to his car. He was 35 years old.
“According to reports, two armed suspects approached them and walked across the street towards them and shot them at point blank range,” police said in a statement.
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A South African hip-hop star, he has won numerous awards in his country and has been nominated once for an MTV Europe Music Award and several Black Entertainment Television (BET) Awards in the United States.
The singer was supposed to perform on Friday night, according to Durban Mayor Mxolisi Kaunda. At the moment the reason is unknown and the police have opened an investigation. Shootings are common in South Africa, which has one of the highest murder rates in the world.
Beauty Dlulane, who heads a parliamentary committee on arts and culture, called on authorities to “protect South Africans from this new scourge of revenge and contract killings, which appear to be targeting artists and DJs.”
increase in shootings
In November, Oupa Sefoka, known as “DJ Sumbody” and a figure of Amapiano house music, was killed along with his bodyguard by drive-by shooting in Johannesburg. In 2007, reggae singer Lucky Dube was shot three times by gunmen as he was dropping off his teenage son with a relative.
Shootings occur regularly in South Africa, a country with one of the highest murder rates in the world, fueled by gang violence and alcohol.
South Africa experienced a series of shootings in 2022 that left nearly 20 people dead in bars in the working-class suburbs of Johannesburg and the eastern city of Pietermaritzburg.
In late January, eight people were killed at a birthday party at a house in the poor suburb of the port city of Gqeberha (formerly Port Elizabeth, to the south). Many people are licensed to carry firearms for personal protection, but there are still more illegal weapons in circulation.
Source: BFM TV
