Slain hip hop artist AKA’s family has ignored his deceased fiancée’s father Moses Tembe’s request to attend the award-winning muso’s funeral amid mounting tensions between the two families.
AKA, who was dating Nadia Nakai after breaking up with media personality Bonang Matheba and the mother of his child DJ Zinhle, was gunned down outside Wish restaurant in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, last Friday.
Sunday World can reveal that Tembe, the father of AKA’s late fiancée Anele “Nellie” Tembe, did not attend the artist’s funeral service held at Saint Stephens Church in Sunninghill yesterday as the family did not accede to his request to pay his last respect.
The internationally renowned hip hop juggernaut was buried at Heroes Acres in Westpark Cemetery in Joburg yesterday.
A deep throat told Sunday World that the businessman reached out to the muso’s family and asked if he was welcome to attend his funeral but they fobbed him off.
“They simply told him that they were busy,” said the mole, who did not want to be named for fear of victimisation.
The tipster said instead AKA’s family opened their arms and welcomed his arch-rival and musician Cassper Nyovest when he visited their home in Bryanston in Joburg and paid his homage on Tuesday. “Cassper Nyovest arrived there and told AKA’s family that the much-publicised beef between him and AKA was over-exaggerated and that they were getting along very well and shared the same vision. He then told the family that he would not be able to attend the funeral because he was flying out of the country on a business trip.”
The informant also said that AKA’s family was hurt by the media statement Tembe released in which he said he would challenge the NPA’s decision not to charge the artist with murder.
This after City Press published a story quoting a letter the Tembe family wrote to the NPA last year alleging that AKA killed Anele, whom the musician said died after jumping off the Pepperclub Hotel balcony in Cape Town, where they were staying.
The Tembe family believe the rapper pushed or threw her from the balcony of the hotel room.
The Tembes also believe that Forbes did not attend to Anele, who was alive for 20 minutes after she hit the ground, but instead cleaned the hotel room of blood and then allegedly went on to party with his friends.
The family also stated that the investigators had ignored a statement by a crucial witness, Rob Stefanutto, who had stated that he had heard an argument in the rapper’s room between a man and a woman.
The family said that during the argument, “the lady, who later turned out to be Anele Tembe, was heard desperately asking the attacker, being male, to leave her alone. Moments thereafter, Stefanutto heard Anele Tembe drop. He then administered CPR on her.”
After the story was published, Tembe issued a statement and said he was going to challenge the NPA’s decision not to commute Anele’s inquest docket to murder. This aggrieved Forbes’s family. “They believe the timing of the statements were not good as they were still mourning the untimely death of their beloved one,” said the source.
Tembe couldn’t be reached for comment at the time of going to print as his phone was off and did not reply to a text message sent to him. But his close ally poured cold water on claims that he approached the family and proposed to attend the funeral.
Meanwhile, KwaZulu-Natal provincial police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi said they had questioned and confiscated cellphones of several people suspected to have played a role in the AKA’s murder.
Follow @SundayWorldZA on Twitter and @sundayworldza on Instagram, or like our Facebook Page, Sunday World, by clicking here for the latest breaking news in South Africa. To Subscribe to Sunday World, click here
