On 10 February, the rapper AKA (Kiernan Forbes) was murdered in downtown Durban, along with his friend and manager, Tebello ‘Tibz’ Motsoane. They were on their way to perform in a nightclub when two assailants ran up to them and shot them at close range. AKA had turned 35 a couple of weeks earlier and had been South Africa’s top rap artist for at least a decade. He was celebrated at home (winning multiple South African music awards), toured several other African countries and was nominated for an MTV Europe award as well as a BET award in US, though in a separate category for African artists.