THE late South African musician, AKA, was one of the artistes who showed love and solidarity with Zimbabweans at a time the country is going through economic and political turmoil.
AKA tweeted about corruption, human rights abuse and the crackdown on protesters in 2020 leading to the #ZimbabweanLivesMatter movement.
AKA became one of the pioneers of the social media campaign after he tweeted a picture of himself draped in the Zimbabwean flag.
Other South African celebrities such as Zakes Bantwini, Dr Tumi, Boity Tulo, the actor Pearl Thusi, politicians Mmusi Maimane and Julius Malema are also pushing the hashtag while the Jamaican band Morgan Heritage denounced human rights violations in the country.
The campaign came after arrests, abductions and torture of high-profile political activists and the incarceration of journalist Hopewell Chin’ono and the Booker prize long-listed author Tsitsi Dangarembga.
The #ZimbabweanLivesMatter hashtag was fashioned after the Black Lives Matter global protests staged since the killing of George Floyd by a US police officer in May 2020.
AKA said South Africans during that time were worried about the #BlackLivesMatter movement happening overseas, but failed to notice injustice on their own doorstep.
“Imagine your fellow Africans are too busy focused on #BLM happening 15,000km away to care about those very same black lives next door. Black is King my a**. Stay strong Zimbabwe,” he wrote on his Twitter.
“Sending love to the megacy in Zimbabwe. I hope y’all good. I would say, 'I’m praying for you' but that’s a bit overdone. I’d rather just say you’re on my mind, and I hope you will be victorious soon.” he added.
AKA went on to say that a crisis in Zimbabwe was also a crisis in South Africa and posting about it would put pressure on the government.
“To be honest, the only thing we as South Africans can do is put pressure on our own government to intervene. How one goes about doing that? I don’t know.
“The aftermath of a crisis in Zimbabwe is a crisis for SA in many ways. Our own government should be looking at it that way,” he said.
Police in Durban said AKA was shot dead in a drive-by shooting on Florida Road on Friday night.
Another person believed to be AKA’s bodyguard was also wounded, while another unidentified person, who is understood to be a close friend of AKA, was also shot dead.
It is understood that AKA was standing outside the Wish Restaurant when he was gunned down.
Two unknown cars are believed to have opened fire just before 10pm.
AKA's death comes two weeks before the release of his album Mass Country.