South African rap star, 35-year-old rapper AKA was shot and killed at point-blank range by two armed suspects outside a restaurant.
Source AFP
© RAJESH JANTILAL / AFP
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LSouth African hip-hop star Kiernan Forbes, known by the stage name AKA, was shot and killed leaving a restaurant in Durban, in the southeast of the country, his family said on Saturday . “It is with extreme sadness that we learn of the passing of our beloved son,” his parents Tony and Lynn Forbes wrote on their Twitter account.
AKA, one of South Africa’s best-known rappers, 35, has won numerous awards in her country and has been nominated once for an MTV Europe Music Award, and several for Black Entertainment Television (BET ) Awards in the United States.
He was killed on Friday evening, along with another man by his side, as they had just left a restaurant and walked to their car. “They were reportedly approached by two armed suspects who crossed the street towards them and shot the victims at close range,” police said in a statement.
The singer was supposed to perform on Friday night, according to Durban Mayor Mxolisi Kaunda. The motive is currently unknown and the police have opened an investigation.
Regular shootings
Beauty Dlulane, who heads a parliamentary committee on arts and culture, called on authorities to “protect South Africans from this new scourge of contract and revenge killings, which appear to target artists and DJs”.
In November, Oupa Sefoka, known as DJ Sumbody and house music figure Amapiano, was killed along with his bodyguard by gunfire from a vehicle in Johannesburg. In 2007, reggae singer Lucky Dube was shot three times by gunmen as he dropped off his teenage son with a relative.
Shootings occur on a regular basis in South Africa, a country with one of the highest homicide 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 town of Gqeberha, formerly Port Elizabeth.
Many people are licensed to carry firearms for personal protection, but even more illegal weapons are in circulation.