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Rapper AKA had an illustrious music career
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- Zambians are mourning SA rapper
AKA with a sense of hypocrisy
The Pilgrim, February 17, 2023
The South African rapper who got
killed, Kiernan Jarryd Forbes, was popularly known as AKA.
AKA was murdered in a
movie-like fashion. According to news reports, he was shot at close range to
put a ruthless and tragic end to one of South Africa’s most successful and
illustrious music careers. The culprits are still at large.
If you follow the music next
door, you must have heard of rappers like Nasty C and Cassper Nyovest. Well,
these guys paled before AKA’s stardom in South Africa. He was, in a phrase, the
cock of the walk.
Zambia’s Macky 2 knew this,
which is why he sought AKA to be the guest feature on the Lusaka-based rapper’s
song “Beautiful Night.”
I sorely mourn for AKA, but so
do many Zambians who loved his charisma and dynamism, including his palpable flair
for lyricism.
But as Zambians mourn AKA, the
undertones of their condolences smack of a cancerous hypocrisy that leaves my
mouth agape with incredulity.
The constant representative
questions Zambians are posing currently, especially on social media, are these:
South Africans, why do you kill your own heroes? Why such wanton destruction of
human life and talent?
But we Zambians are
hypocrites! We’re so quick to see the mote in another country’s eyes, as it
were, and not the one in our own.
I’m saying this because in
Zambia, as opposed to murdering our own people with a hail of gunfire on the
streets, we do so by simply using our own envy, greed, and hatred, or even by
praying for their downfall.
Don’t tell me that murder or
gun violence is worse than tacit hatred for another person. They are both abominable
and serve the same purpose: to destroy the spirit of a fellow human being.
Rather than reflect and
acknowledge the need for our own reformation as a people, we want to pretend to
regret AKA’s death by uttering slurs against South Africans because we’re
convinced they are more hopeless than us.
I want to speak to you, Zambians,
because as a Zambian myself I’m automatically an expert on how we behave and
treat each other as a people. I know you from inside out.
There is such a thing today
known as the Disciplinary Committee in our country. It depicts some of our
worst proclivities.
Think of what happened to the
country’s perhaps leading music star, Yo Maps. In one unguarded moment, Yo
Maps’ wife, Kidist, seems to have suggested that her husband would need to be paid
K30,000 to appear on a podcast interview.
When this happened, the Disciplinary
Committee—a term which Zambians have adopted to
refer to their own herd mentality of hatred—went all out to destroy Yo Maps’
career. Fans threatened to boycott his shows and music before raising Chile One
as a nemesis for the star.
To indulge their dark side,
the Disciplinary Committee denied Yo Maps any support and made sure he never
won anything at the last Kwacha Music Awards.
To make a comeback, Yo Maps
not only had to apologize, but he went on to make an entire song about how such
backlash almost wreaked havoc in his life. The Committee was happy!
If you want more examples,
remember what happened to President Hakainde Hichilema’s press aide Anthony
Bwalya, when he was removed from his position.
Perhaps his most awkward
picture started trending online as people expressed delirious happiness about
the development.
Such is the hate we perpetrate
as a people and even the rapper Ruff Kid bemoans it in the song “Nkamisiya.” In
the music video, the artist even forces himself to actually lie flat in a
coffin and says he doesn’t want any plaudits from Zambians during his funeral
if he can’t get them while he’s alive.
It’s the same culture of hate
and jealousy that Ozzy satirizes in his “Kobili” song. It’s like we’ve an
entire catalogue of songs on this subject in the country.
I’ll tell you that the easiest
way to trend on social media in Zambia is to simply lose a job or a business.
Instead of helping you, people
will vilify you and use you as a point of reference.
You see, sometimes I share my
thoughts on Facebook. When I write professionally, I get little honest
feedback. But when I say something silly, oh, people like it and they tag each
other.
There is a theory that this
type of behaviour started on farming plantations, where Africans were forced to
work as slaves. To curry favor with the slavemaster, it’s alleged that some
Africans practiced what we locally call muzungu anikonde (white man like
me). So people snitched on each other in reckless abandon. So slave rose
against slave. With snitching, you get the so-called fifth column in society.
In America, they call this Black Informing.
I don’t really want to
speculate but I’ll tell you that I’ve Nigerian friends, and no matter what a
Nigerian artist does, Nigerians hardly victimize their own. They support each
other so much such that they think other Africans, including Zambians, cannot
hold a candle to them.
Folks, that’s where it’s at. Let’s
not be quick to harshly judge South Africa while we’ve a unique problem about
and of ourselves.
The other day somebody was wondering why
Zambians, as opposed to other Africans, seem to have low engagement on Twitter.
The responses were quick and sharp. The allegation was that Zambians don’t
support each other.
Stop acting like you care
about the children next door when your own are sleeping on empty stomachs day in
and day out. What’s wrong with you? Change!
We’ve the equivalent of murder,
racism, and xenophobia in Zambia—and it’s called hatred. I’m trying to tell you
that in South Africa they will shoot you, but they’ll simply hate you in
Zambia! It’s one and the same thing.
*This column is published every Friday in Zambia's leading newspaper, the Zambia Daily Mail
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