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At 28, Kiernan Forbes, a.k.a. AKA a.k.a. Super Mega a.k.a. King Bae a.k.a. 3rdWorldBoss a.k.a. Doro Mega, earlier this month told radio presenter Anele Mdoda that he’s in a good place. I wasn’t sure if that was just a standard interview response, or for real.
But when we meet, I soon realise that AKA is, in fact, genuinely happy with where he’s at. He arrives at our interview in a maroon Tiger of Sweden suit, worn with a black shirt.
“I am a little late because I was getting dressed up for you,” he jokes charmingly as he takes a seat. “Were it anyone else, I would have just worn jeans.”
SA’S PRINCE OF POP
On Friday, he released a new single, Dreamwork, featuring Yanga. This follows the sneak preview of another, One Time (which he co-wrote and co-produced), that he performed on the biggest music show in the country, Live Amp, last month. His appearance on Live was the show’s biggest episode so far in terms of audience numbers, and trended worldwide. He says he chose to premiere the song with a live performance because “I wanted a Saturday Night Live-type feel, where people do brand-new music. And One Time is like a pop song, because secretly I want to be a pop star.”
So, surely we should be expecting his third album around about now? “I am still working on the album and, as people know, I am a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to my work,” he says. “And I want to make sure that the album is as good, if not better, than Levels…”
Subjects of The Kingdom (which is what his fan base is called) know all about waiting for AKA’s music. After all, they waited three years for Levels, which was the follow-up to his debut album, Altar Ego, but it was worth it.
Over the years, the rapper has proven himself to be a hitmaker, and from just those two albums has given his fans Victory Lap (which also has a hot remix featuring Amu, Tumi and HHP), I Want It All (featuring Khuli Chana and Pro), All I Know, Congratulate, All Eyes On Me, Kontrol (featuring Da L.E.S), Sim Dope, Run Jozi (featuring K.O) and Jealousy. He’s arguably the local hip-hop game’s most important player.
“Every album also has to have a different sound and a different direction, otherwise I stagnate and stay the same,” he says.
Lately, he’s been collaborating with African artists outside our borders, spreading The Kingdom. There’s his feature with Yemi Alade on the remix of Mama Africa; he features on Hello by Laylizzy “who is basically the biggest thing in Mozambique right now”; he features on Ma-E’s Lie 2 Me; and his collaboration with Tanzania’s Diamond Platnumz on Make Me Sing has had just shy of 3 million views on YouTube since its release in February.
“So basically the plan is to take over the world like Pinky and the Brain,” he says, holding a pinky finger to the corner of his lip with a smile.
He says he made One Time after being inspired on his return from Canada (where he performed at the inaugural Africa In The 6 concert as part of the NBA All- Star Weekend).
“I wanted to make a song for blessers [sugar daddies and mummies], which have always been a big thing, and we’ve just called it something different, and I just thought it would be cool to make a tongue-in-cheek song so that the women being blessed have a song to be blessed to, and the guys or the girls doing the blessing have a song to bless people to. Something that’s a bit humorous and fun, and that’s important for me as an artist to make music that resonates. It’s also a great pop song. And it’s possibly one of my favourite songs ever.”
I ask him whether the focus on pop music means that he will no longer be South Africa’s rap prince, but rather South Africa’s pop prince.
“I think rap music is pop music because pop stands for popular music, and that’s what I make. And in many ways, I think rap music is bound by so many rules like ‘keeping it real’, whereas pop artists can just make music and I think that’s great because I make rap music but popular rap music ... If you think about it, Congratulate was a pop song, but I never thought to myself ‘this is a pop song’.”
And it’s working. Last year, AKA was the most played local artist on South African radio stations, and placed fourth overall after Adele, Justin Bieber and the Weeknd, in that order.
His Midas touch is so real that his diss track Composure, which was never really intended for radio, ended up on playlists on high rotation.
Both AKA’s Baddest and All Eyes On Me feature Nigeria’s Burna Boy, and have received play on stations in east, west and southern Africa, in addition to being playlisted on BBC 1, which named him one artist to watch out for in 2016.
“I am having a lot of fun making the new album, but I am also doubly critical, so that’s why I am taking my time with it.
“Also, once you put an album out, that’s it ... And I have two classic albums and I would like three … and four, and five and six … and maybe I’ll stop rapping and sing more because I have always loved singing, because that gave me a base for who I am as an artist. I can sing, I can rap and I can produce.”
I ask whether the album will be named after his eight-month-old daughter Kairo.
“I would like to name an album after her,” he says. “I don’t think it’s cheesy and I would like for her to know that there is an album for her. Maybe not this one, but definitely at some point...”
WELCOME TO THE SUPER MEGA SHOW
Next Sunday, AKA will host the first of his concert-style performances with the kickoff of the Super Mega Show at Zone 6 in Soweto.
“Two and a half years ago, I made a decision to change the live setup completely, so now I perform with my band 90% of the time. We made an investment on our side and I wanted to grow my name as a festival performer, and decided that for me to be booked for these types of festivals and shows, I would need to put a certain amount of work into my live show … That was just a natural progression.”
The investment appears to be paying off – AKA was the first rap act to headline the main stage at Oppikoppi last year, which he hopes to play again. He has also done the Cape Town International Jazz Festival twice.
“Now I have my own engineer and our own visuals guy who travels with me, so the Super Mega Show is a culmination of all of that.”
He says he will be performing new music, and the Super Mega Show will go all over the country.
“We want to do stuff like GrandWest Casino, Carnival City, the ladidas…” He laughs and continues: “I want people to come to my shows and bring their dads and their moms because it’s a serious show.”
The Super Mega Show also features meet-and-greet packages and an opening act. He will be selling merchandise, a follow-on from his very successful collaboration with Head Honcho, while his Rocka headphones and speakers also continue to sell well.
NUMBERS DON’T LIE
AKA has also put his support for education where his mouth is, and has announced a scholarship with the SAE Institute in Cape Town, joining the likes of Ready D and Black Coffee. The AKA scholarship will cover a full year’s sound production tuition for four successful applicants.
“If there is one thing I still use till this day, it is sound engineering – to make my show better, to make my studio time easier. And with education being such a big issue in our country right now, this is just my way of helping and contributing.”
The response has been impressive, with more than 1 300 applications in nearly two weeks. In addition to the scholarship, AKA is using his reach (he has 1 million followers on Twitter) to showcase new artists with the hashtag #ComeUpKingdom.
Some of his past tweets precipitated him getting something of a bad-boy reputation over the years: “I am so much better on Twitter, have you noticed? I am so good now!”
I laugh and ask why. He smirks and says: “You know … I met someone who made it a lot clearer for me.”
He gets a little more serious and says: “I was just tired of all of that drama, and I wanted to clean things up. I tweet less, and now I tweet when it matters. I used to tweet about everything, and now I just tweet about things that people need to know, and then I let it go.
“I think everything is just a bit cleaner. The music, the swag … Everything is good. I think I have taken myself a lot more seriously and people have warmed up to me again, and I think that has a lot to do with cleaning up my social-media profile,” he says.
“Sometimes you don’t need to dignify certain things with a response, because it’s not worth it. It’s not important to overshare with people any more, and I just decided to kill everything and sterilise it.”
I ask if it feels like he’s censoring himself.
“No, I feel as if I am refining myself, who I am, as an artist, as a brand, as a father...” He pauses. “‘Refined’ is a good word.”
We talk about the amount of media attention he has generated over the past few years.
“I have cut off everybody’s content. It’s a slow news day for a lot of people and people made a lot of money off me, in content. And they’ll find someone else; there’s always someone else. It got to a point where it was starting to distract from the fact that I am an awesome artist, so now it’s back to work.” He leans back and smiles broadly.
Born in Cape Town AKA is born Kiernan Jarryd Forbes on January 28 1988 in Cape Town.
AKA shot to fame as part of a rap trio called Entity in the early 2000s, which he formed with two school friends.
Their single Touch N Go enjoyed
massive airplay on TV and radio, and they were nominated for a best African
hip-hop award at the 2005 Kora Awards, where they also performed. The group
decided to part ways
in 2006.
After the end of Entity, AKA went on to study sound engineering and became a part of a production collective called The I.V. League. He went on to do production work for the likes of Pro, Tuks Senganga, Andile, Shugasmakx, Khuli Chana, Teargas, Psyfo, Jub Jub, Loyiso Bala, Bala Brothers, JR and ProVerb.
In 2009, AKA began his solo career in earnest with the release of singles including Mistakes, In My Walk and Do It, which got him airplay and he was recognised for his lyricism. Hype Magazine named him the best newcomer in the same year.
In 2011, he released his first solo album, called Altar Ego, through Vth Season and Showlove Music, which had hits such as Victory Lap (released in 2010), I Want It All (2010) and All I Know (released in 2011). He won numerous awards for Altar Ego, including Metro FM music awards for best newcomer, best hip-hop and best-produced album.
His song Victory Lap won Channel O’s most gifted hip-hop video at the seventh annual Channel O Music Video Awards. At the 18th SA Music Awards, AKA was crowned as the male artist of the year and won the best street urban music album award.
In 2014, ahead of the release of his second album, Levels, AKA signed a multialbum deal with Sony Music through its new local label Sound African Recordings.
Three years after the release of Altar Ego, AKA released Levels in 2014 under his new deal with Sony. In the same year, he announced a collaboration with streetwear brand Head Honcho, which sold out around the country in 2015. Levels had hits such as Jealousy, All Eyez On Me, and Run Jozi, which won numerous awards, including a 2015 MTV Africa Music Award for best collaboration in 2015.
Congratulate, which was also released from Levels, debuted at number one on Metro FM, 5FM and YFM. It peaked at number one on the South African iTunes hip-hop chart. In June 2015, Levels was certified gold by the Recording Industry of SA.
In 2015, AKA was nominated alongside The Soil in the Best International Act: Africa category at the 2015 BET Awards held in Los Angeles, California. The award was won by Ghana’s Stonebwoy.
He was also nominated for a Nigerian Entertainment Award in the African Artist of the Year (non-Nigerian) category and was announced as a headline act for the Oppikoppi main stage. Without a new album, he is the most played local artist in the country, and his single Baddest is playlisted on the UK’s BBC 1 Extra, following All Eyez On Me, which was also playlisted in the UK.
BBC 1 Xtra names AKA as one of the artists on it’s Hot for 2016 list – an annual list naming the artists the station thinks are worth watching. He is the only South African artist on the list.
His single Baddest wins two
2016 Metro FM Awards. His Twitter account reaches 1 million followers, making
him the first South African artist to take this honour.
Follow AKA on Twitter @akaworldwide
