AKA (rapper)
South African rapper (1988–2023)
Kiernan Jarryd Forbes (28 January 1988 – 10 February 2023), known professionally as AKA and also Supamega, was a South African rapper, record producer, and businessman. Born in Cape Town and raised in Johannesburg, Forbes gained recognition after releasing his single "Victory Lap" from his debut studio album, Altar Ego (2011). Often regarded as one of the greatest South African musicians of all time, he was one of the most popular South African musicians of his era and the best-selling South African hip-hop artist of all-time.
Forbes continued his success by releasing studio albums including Levels (2014), a collaborative album with Anatii titled Be Careful What You Wish For (2017), Touch My Blood (2018) and his final album, Mass Country (2023).
On 10 February 2023, Forbes was shot dead outside a restaurant in Durban.
Early life and education
Kiernan Jarryd Forbes was born in Cape Town, South Africa 28 January 1988 into a Christian family. He is the eldest of two boys, and is the older brother of Steffan Forbes. He moved to Johannesburg at a young age and attended St John's College.
Career
2002-2013: the beginnings and Alter Ego
In 2002, Forbes, alongside his two friends Vice Versa (Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh) and Greyhound, formed a hip-hop group called Entity. The group received a nomination for a KORA Award in the Best African Hip Hop category.
The public source identifies “AKA (rapper)” as south African rapper (1988–2023). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around rapper, South and African.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15987642. VIAF identifies the subject as 4559172459148422830009. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1988, 2023, 2011 and 2014.
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This entry incorporates text from “AKA (rapper)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.