AKA’s family shares memorial service details

The announcement was made by AKA’s family in a statement without disclosing his place of burial. AKA’s father, Tony Forbes, has been appointed as family spokesperson and will address the media on 14 February at 3pm.

The public has been invited to attend a memorial service in honour of AKA at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg on 17 February from 3pm to 5pm.

Free tickets to the service can be obtained here. The event will be streamed live here.

“We as the Forbes family would like to acknowledge the outpouring of love we have received over the past few days,” the statement reads. “Kiernan wasn’t just loved by us as a family, but by the nation, as we’ve seen from loved ones, friends, industry colleagues, media tributes and the MEGACY.

“It is our wish to celebrate the life of Kiernan with those he touched and impacted through his gift of music ... We’d also like to acknowledge our extended family, the Mohosanas, for their unwavering support during this time, as Bongani Mahosana will be in absentia at the memorial and funeral due to observing cultural protocol.”

Meanwhile, the memorial service of AKA’s friend, Tebello ‘Tibz’ Motsoane, will be held at Sacred Heart College in Observatory, Johannesburg, on 16 February at 5pm. Motsoane, who was killed alongside AKA, will be laid to rest at a private funeral on 18 February.

“The Motsoane family are deeply moved by the national outpouring of love and support over the past few days,” a statement reads. “Financial contributions are welcomed by the family at this time.”

Police investigation ongoing

The two men were killed outside a popular restaurant in Florida Road in Durban on 10 Febriuary in what many are saying was an orchestrated hit on the rapper. Durban police are investigating the homicides, with the authorities saying that detectives are currently interviewing scores of people and analysing video footage of the incident.

“Our strategy is to trace the incident from the shooting backwards,” KwaZulu-Natal provincial police commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi told Newzroom Afrika. “How those people got to the spot [of the crime scene], what was their communication and what were their movements? The investigation that we are rolling out and the strategy we are employing is that we are tracing it back, from the shooting backwards, as to how those people get called to that spot from the first place and everything else that involves their communication, their movements, and so forth.

“We are still analysing quite a number of data that we collected, including video footage, cellphone data, communication, social media communications, as I’m sure it's public knowledge that one of the deceased was communicating all his movements prior to him going to the place so anyone who would have access to [those social media platforms] would have known exactly where he was going to be at any given time.”