CHAPTER TWO
- MIND GAMES
Knowing that Kiernan had already betrayed a string of women probably played havoc with Anele’s mind.
She had just turned 21 when she met him, and Kiernan would turn 32 in late January 2020.
Because of Kiernan’s relationship “overlap”, when things started between the couple, it would have been hard for Anele to trust him fully.
Over the following year, the relationship appeared to become torturous for Anele – but even so, right from the start, she was clearly smitten with AKA, as he was with her.
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There was undeniably a lot of love and passion there.
By the time he met Nellie, Kiernan was already SupaMega, a man of the world.
He was a well-travelled and seductively hip and cool superstar. He had millions of social media followers and was allegedly worth much more in rand.
By 2019, AKA was probably the biggest deal in local hip-hop. He’d been in the industry for over a decade, was well-known and respected across Africa and had begun making inroads into the global hip-hop scene.
Meanwhile, Anele was hardly a girl from the backwaters of KwaZulu-Natal.
As the youngest daughter of the business tycoon Moses Tembe, she’d been brought up in a world of wealth and privilege. She’d gone to a private school and done her fair share of travelling abroad to places like the United Kingdom and France.
She’d even celebrated her 21st birthday in October 2019 by getting her father to splurge on a holiday trip to Ibiza – but, in the end, Anele was still just a kid, albeit one dressed up in pricey and provocative clothing.
The question that many onlookers would have asked was: why was Kiernan Forbes going after a girl who was more than a decade his junior?
It’s not uncommon to have an age gap of ten-plus years, but it does say something about the power dynamics in a relationship.
Did it make AKA feel cooler and more youthful?
Anele was a stunner, and he must have felt like “the man” when he showed her off to his homies and on Instagram.
By all appearances, he was thrilled by his latest conquest.
Others wondered about his predilection for black girls.
He’d been involved with actress Enhle Mbali (in the early days), Zinhle Jiyane (twice, and she was his baby mama), Bonang Matheba (whom he almost married), Nicole Nyaba (the in-between relationship side-chick) and finally Anele Tembe.
In an interview with fellow rapper L-Tido in late 2022, the host asked, “Why are you always dating black girls?”
Razor-sharp as always, Kiernan fired back, “So, why do you have a coloured baby?”
The two of them laughed like bros, and then Kiernan added, “Once you’ve gone … you’re gone” – clearly playing on the line “once you go black, you never go back”.
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Having a young wife or girlfriend often makes older men appear more relevant or virile, especially in the image-driven, male-centric world of rap.
Having a young, Zulu girlfriend may have been particularly appealing to Kiernan who’d weathered much criticism over the years for not speaking any vernacular.
He’d even been accused of exploiting black artists who rapped in vernac on his tracks.
His detractors alleged they were only there to lend authenticity to his profile as an African hip-hop star.
To Kiernan, Anele’s youthfulness was clearly an asset. Soon after they became “official”, he boasted on Twitter about his new young girlfriend and encouraged his male followers to “Find yourself a lekker 21-year-old, my broer. Trust me.”
This is an edited extract from When Love Kills: The Tragic Tale of AKA and Anele by Melinda Ferguson (published by MF Books and NB Publishers). It is available at all good bookstores and online at takealot.com.
Melinda, founder and proprietor of Melinda Ferguson (MF) Books, an imprint of NB Publishers, is an author of bestselling memoirs Smacked, Hooked and Crashed, Oscar: An Accident Waiting to Happen, and the Kelly Khumalo Story.
