“I wanted to make an album that had an undercurrent of super South African country music,” Kiernan “AKA” Forbes told Apple Music in one of his last interviews before his sudden, tragic death on 10 February 2023. “I grew up listening to a lot of Jackson Browne and Cat Stevens, and all these weird guys that my dad played me, and it was kind of cathartic for me after my fiancée passed away. Country music is very much about heartbreak and pickup trucks and stars and stuff like that. So, I wanted to kind of get that feeling in there. But in a South African context, that would mean what? Maskandi; music from the Midlands, Pietermaritzburg. But then, with my obvious love for house music as well, and as time went on, ‘MASS COUNTRY’ just grew to mean the sound of South Africa—the sound of the country that I’m from, and the purpose of it being for the country that I’m from.” Released just two weeks after his death, AKA’s fifth solo studio album, MASS COUNTRY, is equal parts a love letter to the country and the sounds he grew up with, and a cathartic journey through grief, healing and self-rediscovery. An idea that was sparked shortly after the heartbreaking loss of his fiancée, Anele “Nellie” Tembe, who passed away in April 2021, MASS COUNTRY is an offering of love in its many forms: There’s love of country, from an artist often lauded for his pioneering efforts to commercialise South African hip-hop; romantic love, from a man navigating deep loss and finding ways to heal and rebuild; and brotherly love, as an artist who was instrumental in edifying the generations of musicians he inspired, many of whom make appearances on the album. MASS COUNTRY also cements AKA’s legacy as a producer who used an almost encyclopedic knowledge of South Africa’s most beloved hits to reinterpret them through captivating samples and interpolations. It’s a technique he famously employed on megahits like 2014’s “All Eyes On Me”, where he laid verses from Burna Boy, Da Les and Jr. over a sample of Brenda Fassie’s 1991 hit “Ngiyakusaba” (which interpolates elements from Jomanda’s “Got a Love for You”). “I’m a producer in the overarching type of sense,” AKA said, “but I am crazy good at chopping samples that evoke nostalgia in people.” Here, he extended that approach with the Khuli Chana collab “Prada” over an interpolation of German duo Knee Deep’s “Darlin”—a deep-house reimagining of Stevie Wonder’s “My Cherie Amour”; and on the Nasty C collab “Lemons (Lemonade)”, which bears an interpolation of Stardust’s 1998 song “Music Sounds Better With You”. AKA recruited producers Christer, Fdeezus, Oriah, 031Choppa, KDDO, SayFar, Nlcno, Tshepo “Teddy” Moloi and Loud Haileer, alongside co-executive producers Nhlanhla “Nivo” Ndimande, Tshiamo Letshwene and Zādok. “Eighty percent of the album was made deep in KwaZulu-Natal,” he said. “We wanted to get into the soil, into the farms. We wanted to soak up the farm energy. We wouldn’t have been able to get that essence of South Africa and Africa if we don’t have real guitars, real music and real keys. Lots of guitar, lots of, like, South African vibes and African vibes.” Read on for AKA’s commentary on some of the key tracks from his final album—his last words on his most personal work. “Last Time” “It’s a lot of shout-outs, just talking about how I remember when I came into the industry—it was a whole different landscape. From there, I just want to get into...I just want to talk my shit.” “Mbuzi (Freestyle)” (feat. Thato Saul) “You’ll see, during the whole album, there’s all these little South African tidbits—like [the opening line of Mgarimbe’s classic hit] ‘Sister Bethina’ here and there. It creates a little bit of mixtape-i-ness and gives a little bit of weirdness to it.” “Company” [AKA& KDDO] “This was a great collaboration with KDDO. [We’ve] got a little Naija vibe there. My girlfriend [Nadia Nakai] hates this song. But it’s not me singing [the hook]…It’s KDDO. I can hear it at KONKA, Makubenjalo, all those places. It’s gimmicky; that’s as gimmicky as the album gets. But I’m allowed a little bit of candy floss here and there. You know what I’m saying?” “Paradise” [AKA, Musa Keys & Gyakie] “On this rap, I was thinking something Sade-ish. In the previous song, we say, ‘One girl’s not enough for me,’ but now we say, ‘You know what? Actually, I’m a nice guy.’” “Amapiano” (feat. Laylizzy & weathrd) “I’ve always had this affinity to Mozambique and Angola—I’ve always wanted to make something for those people. But they’re our people at the same time. It’s all one people: Southern Africa. I wanted to connect with that type of vibe. [Co-writer and Mi Casa frontperson] J’Something is a good friend of mine, and there’s this great artist called Laylizzy from Mozambique. It samples Sergio Mendes—‘Oooo, aria raio’ [the primary refrain from Mendes’ 1966 hit ‘Mais Que Nada’].” “Dangerous” (feat. Nadia Nakai) [AKA & Blxckie] “There’s no way I wasn’t going to do a song with my girlfriend on this album. So, this is a song with me and Nadia. Do you guys remember that song by Meek Mill, ‘All Eyes on You’? You know how rap music used to sound maybe like 10 years ago? Just like, damn man, so many love songs. Just something really sultry just for me and her to have a track. For some reason, I haven’t really done...my catalogue doesn’t contain a lot of music with female artists, so I [was] trying to right that wrong. “Everest” “After Anele’s passing, [the tracks at the end of the album] were the first songs I made. These are to say, ‘OK, this is where I was in my life. You guys need to hear this. This is the hard stuff to talk about, but here it is.’ The album would be incomplete without that type of material. This one and ‘Diary’—it’s all the shit that I needed to get off [my chest]. It’s a lot.” “Army (Bonus)” “I wanted to make an MK-ish influence [referring to uMkhonto we Sizwe, or ‘MK’, the African National Congress’ paramilitary wing]. Conscription was a thing here back in the ’80s. So, it’s just saying, ‘Well, you’re riding with me now, so you’re in the army now.’ And then also to sprinkle a little political content in there, a bit of social commentary in there.”