Tony Forbes: The grief and the memories of son, AKA

In this episode of The Carol Ofori Podcast, Carol has a candid and sincere conversation with Tony Forbes, the father of late hip hop star, Kiernan Jarryd Forbes, or AKA, who was murdered in Durban in February this year. Tony Forbes, affectionately known as ‘Uncle Tony’, shares personal stories about the performer his son had always been, even from a young age. “Many Sundays we would sit in the lounge and Kiernan would descend from the stairs and he would then perform a Michael Jackson song like ‘Bad’ and I remember he had these white sneakers with orange laces! He was just a performer from a young age,” Forbes recalls. He tells The Carol Ofori Podcast about the passion for music he and his son shared, and how they would message each other song clips and links. Tony also warmly reflects, “Right up until the end, I used to still send him [Kiernan] old school music and say, ‘listen to this boy, listen to this’ - and of course he would ignore me for a long time, and eventually he would come back and say ‘that’s a dope track!’” Tony speaks of he and AKA’s common interest in sport and also jokes about the competitive nature he and his son had, and how he refused to ever lose to young Kiernan! “We shared a passion for sport. Kiernan was very competitive. I’d like to take credit for that because I made sure I never lost anything to him, whether it was a game of soccer in the yard, I always beat him! But the last game of chess we played, he actually beat me!” Tony also opens up about the night his son was killed and the moment he heard his son had been murdered. He also reveals why he cannot yet find forgiveness for his son’s killers. “I’m not there yet. I can only forgive someone if I know who did it. I cannot forgive a faceless person,” he tells Carol. “I do have moments when I have some anger. I would see an image of him [Kiernan] with Kairo or just an image of him and I would think, ‘who has the right to do this? Who does something like this?’, and in that moment I do feel some anger.” As for the viral video of his son being shot in Florida Road, Tony tells Carol he didn’t have ‘strong feelings about that’ and said he did watch it because he needed to know the details. “For me, personally, I needed to see that and I’ve looked it many, many times because I wanted to see his last moments and I take comfort from a few things. The fact that it happened very quickly and I don’t think there was any time for him to realise what was happening. I saw that moments before it happened he embraced his friend and he had a smile of his face. I take comfort from that.” At the time of AKA’s murder, he was one of the biggest (if not, the biggest) hip hop stars in South Africa, with a massive international following. Tony says it dawned on them at the funeral. Even seven months after his death, the awards continue to roll in for AKA, with the latest award being a DSTv Content Creator Award and there might be more as the singer was recently nominated in the BET Hip Hop Awards. Tony is not at all surprised, “He always got the accolades. He worked hard. He worked incredibly hard. I’m very proud of ‘Mass Country.’” AKA was shot and killed in Florida Road, Durban on the night of Friday 10 February, 2023. He was killed along with his close friend, 41-year-old celebrity chef and entrepreneur Tebello 'Tibz' Motsoane. Both men were gunned down as they were leaving a restaurant. To date, no arrests have been made. Podcast page on ECR's website