Award-winning visual artist Mondli Kunene has unveiled an art piece that he created for slain rapper Kiernan “AKA” Forbes, in 2020.
The young creative said he would love to present the artwork to the Forbes family to honour AKA’s legacy.
Kunene told IOL Entertainment, his efforts to gift AKA the painting while he was alive, yielded no results.
“The MondliArt work titled ‘Thinking of a Masterplan’ was inspired by the idea of showing love to AKA while he was still alive because mostly, we tend to show appreciation to those we love when they have passed.
“AKA had great taste. We’ve seen it in his beats selections, we’ve seen it n his music videos, and we’ve seen it in his lifestyle.”
“I believe AKA would have loved the painting because it would have ticked off the aesthetic boxes that he had shown through his art form. I took what Romeo, his photographer created and I flipped it around.
“If you look at it in a music context, I sampled the photograph, which AKA was known for. AKA was known to take a certain song and sample it into a great hit, so I did exactly that with this ModliArt work.
“Since 2020, I’ve been trying to reach out to his team and family on the DMs, to no avail. With his passing now, I would like to present this masterpiece to the family.”
The portrait is inspired by AKA’s hit single “Monuments”, featuring Yanga Chief and the legendary DJ Ready D.
Kunene said in 2019, he did a portrait of hip-hop superstar Khuli Chana just before he dropped his album “Planet of the Have Nots”.
“Shortly afterwards, I did this one for AKA. So, this is a bittersweet moment for me that I was able to give Khuli Chana his flowers while he could still smell them whereas, with AKA, unfortunately, I couldn’t.
“I wanted to show my appreciation for what AKA has the done for the culture.
“Creatives are world leaders, they are to be shown love not only when they have passed on but also during their years while alive.”
The star shared the visuals on his Instagram page. He wrote: “Rarely do I paint portraits of public figures especially if I am not commissioned by them, but during the year 2019, I planned to create a series of portraits for South African creatives who helped shape the culture through their arts and among them was the late great multitalented @akaworldwide.
“Alas, I am grateful to be alive and to enjoy his gift to us, which is his art in the form of music, which is a gift that keeps giving. May we play his music and keep him in our convos whenever we talk about great artists we have had in SA.”
Kunene’s artwork features a combination of recycled materials coupled with socio-political commentary.
In December 2022, Kunene was recognised as the winner of the SA Brandy Innovation Challenge at WineTech in Paarl.
The three winners each took home R50 000 cash and an opportunity to create their own brandy.
“I came up with an extremely unique idea of how we can find innovative solutions using my artworks to attract and introduce fine brandy in an innovative way and I won.
“As a creative from the Vaal area, Daleside (Midvaal), I believe my consistency in creating the highest quality thought-provoking artworks to raise awareness about social issues in Africa and how those issues resonate to the rest of the world.
“The younger creatives, who will be leading after I am gone, will carry on raising the standard of arts and culture because the future needs it.”