Festive cheer is met with a heavy heart for rapper Nadia Nakai this Christmas. Despite a year brimming with professional achievements – launching her own app, scoring a distribution deal, and racking up accolades – the holidays are a stark reminder of the void left by the tragic loss of her boyfriend, AKA earlier in February, 2023.
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She was very open about her struggles to ZiMoja.
“Sometimes I am okay but most times I am not. I am supposed to be happy with all my achievements but I am drowning myself in work and keeping busy,” she says.
“I have already told my family and his (AKA’s family). I want nothing. I don’t want to talk to anyone or see anyone. I just want to be alone this Christmas!”
“It triggers me,” she adds.
HOW SHE PLANS TO SPEND THE HOLIDAYS
Usually the life of the party, Nakai plans to go MIA this Christmas for some solitude. “I know my friends will try and come over, ambush me and try to cheer me up. But I just want to be alone and treat it like another day,” she shares, her fingers clutching the ‘Jesus Piece’ necklace which belonged to AKA.
This is much unlike Christmas last year. At that time, the Forbes’ family celebrated Christmas with her at her new house.
“Last year, we had them over at my place for a braai because I had just bought a new house and everyone was happy. Everyone from Kairo, my mom, uncle, his brother, his girlfriend and his mom were there and we had a great time,” she said to ZiMoja.
SHE THOUGHT AKA WAS “THE ONE”
The pain of AKA’s absence is still raw for her. “I thought I had found “the one”,” she said, “and every day I am reminded by something that he is gone. So, I want nothing.”
Work, then, becomes her refuge. Nadia throws herself into her craft. Gigs and events become not just performances, but a way to channel her grief into a powerful expression.
For New Year’s Day she has an event planned in Cape Town which she must attend. Nadia claimed that the holiday season for her is usually about family and spending quality time with loved ones. “But this one is different,” she stated. “It’s about work. I am trying to work as much as possible and distract myself,” she told ZiMoja.