February 10, 2024, marks exactly one year since the award-winning South African rapper Kiernan Forbes, known as AKA, was gunned down in a suspected hit on Durban’s popular Florida Road.

 

 

 

Police have indicated that some of the rapper’s killers were already behind bars, while some were on the run as the men in blue continue with their meticulous prosecutor-driven investigation into the murder that shocked the nation last February.

AKA, who was also known as the SUPA MEGA, was shot dead at close range by gunmen as he left the Wish Restaurant, ahead of a scheduled performance at the Yugo night club. His long-time friend and former manager, Tebello ‘Tibz’ Motsoane, was also shot dead as the two had been embracing each other outside the restaurant before the shots were fired.

When AKA was gunned down, it had been his first trip to Durban since the death of his ex-fiance, Anele Tembe, who died in mysterious circumstances when she fell from the tenth floor of a Cape Town hotel.

Tembe’s death was believed to be death by suicide, but at her funeral in April 2021, her family, through her father Moses, said she was not suicidal, and neither had she died from suicide.

AKA’s dad, Tony, spoke out in a podcast this week and said publicly that he believed the relationship between Anele and AKA should not have happened. He said however, his son was not a murderer, and rejected suggestions he had pushed her off the balcony. He also revealed that the relationship between the Tembe’s and the Forbes had become strained.

A year on since AKA’s murder, no arrests have been officially made, although the Sunday Tribune reported in March last year, that police had arrested at least five suspects linked to the murder in Cape Town.