AKA is bang-on for his place in the sun
Posted on 09. Nov, 2011 in Media Clips
We’re at Chapman’s Peak, the sun is blazing and Kiernan Forbes, also known as AKA (see what I did there?), is all smiles.
A lot of it has to do with the fact that he has made it to the final nominee list of the Metro FM Music Awards. He got nods for Best Produced Album, Best Hip Hop Album, Best Newcomer, Best Collaboration and Best Music Video.
The latter is one AKA is truly deserving of. When I meet up with the rapper, he is already hard at work on his next video Bang, featuring the Motswak originator, Khuli Chana.
Cape Town is the desired location and on this day, day 2 of the shoot, the Mother City is beaming its sun rays on any and everything. So why choose Bang, off his debut album Altar Ego?
He smiles: “It’s a banging song; it’s hot, it’s guaranteed to bang.”
OK, all cheese aside, I ask him to elaborate. “First and foremost, Bang has got this nostalgic type of feel,” says AKA, “It samples a Booty Collins song and even Eazy E sampled this particular Booty Collins song.” Furthermore, “Cape Town’s scenery is awesome and I wanted to do something I’ve never done before.”
Other than it being a great place to drive a drop-top BMW and mouth the words to your hit alongside a sought-after rapper, your DJ (Fanatic) and cigar-wielding manager, Tibz, why is Cape Town so close to this Jozi-based rapper?
“Cape Town is where I was born,” he shares, “I grew up between Bellville and Westridge, so it’s good to come back and do this type of thing because things are much better now.”
His favourite memory of being a piccaninny in Kaapstad is spending “Friday to Sunday with 42-in-1 TV games and Mix-A-Drink. My uncle’s room was literally cigarettes and brown bottles and he’d send me to the shops and tell me to buy sweets with the change.”
His grandmother’s house is where he spent most weekends and where he learnt to dance to his idol, Michael Jackson.
Also, bringing his longtime collaborator Khuli on set is something he’s wanted to do for a long time.
“It’s also a very personal song,” says AKA. “Khuli’s rapping about his dad in it.”
Khuli gives a wry smile and asks: “Is this the part where I cry?”
Everyone laughs. On a serious note though, “We just have that chemistry when we perform,” explains Khuli, “Plus I missed out on the I Want It All video. I actually thought he would’ve gone for a bigger hit, like Ladies Is Pimps or something. This video is going to change the game.”
How so, you wonder? Bruce Patterson of Pilot Films says: “We wanted to capture the rawness through the handycam. We’re going to give those scenes a black-and-white treatment for that dogmatic, documentary style. And that behind-the-scenes footage will get intercut with our beautiful performance piece. That’s going to be epic.”
But will it win a Metro FM Music Award next year? I guess we’ll have to wait and see.
http://www.iol.co.za/tonight/music/aka-is-bang-on-for-his-place-in-the-sun-1.1174343
