Akon unveiled plans in 2018 to build a futuristic city in Senegal, his country of birth.
He likened the vision to a real-life version of Wakanda, the fictional city from Marvel’s Black Panther. The project, named Akon City, aims to be a cutting-edge hub powered by a local cryptocurrency called AKoin.
Despite the global economic disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Akon remained committed to the development of the $6 billion venture.
He revealed that construction was slated to start in 2021, with the aim of not only providing employment opportunities for Senegalese but also offering a welcoming environment for Black Americans and diaspora members facing racial discrimination.
By August 2020, Akon, accompanied by government officials, visited the project site in Mbodienne and confirmed that one-third of the necessary funds had been secured.
However, he chose not to disclose the investors involved due to confidentiality agreements. Although initially set for completion by 2023, the project’s timeline is now uncertain due to significant delays and complications.
The Senegalese government has expressed dissatisfaction with the project’s slow progress.
Through Sapco-Senegal, the state agency overseeing coastal and tourism developments, officials have issued a warning to Akon, threatening to reclaim the majority of the allocated land if substantial progress is not made.
According to reports, Akon risks losing up to 90 percent of the land if construction does not advance promptly.
In response, Akon’s team has reported that initial tasks like geotechnical surveys and land preparation are in progress. Project manager Cheick Seck from Axiome Construction has stated that they are awaiting further guidance to proceed with major construction. Akon is anticipated to visit Dakar soon to address concerns and reassure stakeholders of the project’s future.
The endeavor has also been marred by legal issues. In 2021, former business associate Devyne Stephens filed a $4 million lawsuit against Akon, alleging unpaid funds from a previous settlement.
A subsequent court filing in March 2022 sought to freeze Akon’s New York assets until the lawsuit’s resolution.
Stephens’ legal team argued that Akon City exhibited signs of fraudulent activity, such as Ponzi and pyramid schemes, and implied the project might be a scam.
Despite these legal challenges and the impact of the pandemic, Akon has denied the accusations and has taken steps to resolve the lawsuit, including a partial settlement payment of $850,000 in April 2022.
The singer remains optimistic, asserting that the project is progressing according to a revised 10-year plan.
Afua Asantewaa has taken her sing-a-thon endeavor beyond borders, even though she has not yet received feedback from Guinness World Records.
The Ghanaian broadcaster, recently appointed as Ghana’s Tourism Ambassador, encountered Akon in Ivory Coast during the ongoing AFCON, where Ghana is scheduled to play tonight.
In a brief exchange, the Senegalese-American music icon expressed astonishment at Afua Asantewaa’s remarkable feat of singing for five consecutive days. Akon promptly introduced Afua to some of his African acquaintances.
“For singing for the longest, you know she sang straight for five days,” excited Akon told his friends. “I am a lover of music and it was a pleasure to have met you @akon @sofitelabidjan,” Afua said in an Instagram post.
Afua Asantewaa Aduonum set out on December 24, 2023, with the goal of breaking the record for the longest singing marathon, which is set to end on December 27, 2023.
The previous record was held by Sunil Waghmare, who sang for 105 hours in 2012.
Afua Asantewaa finished her attempt on December 29, 2023, setting a new record with an astounding 126 hours and 52 minutes.
Senegalese-American singer Akon has offered some unconventional advice on wealth.
In his recent appearance on the Impulsive Podcast, Akon stirred controversy by suggesting that stinginess is essential for maintaining riches.
He boldly declared himself as ‘the stingiest man on the planet’ and stressed the importance of financial discipline to stay wealthy.
Akon shared a personal anecdote about his brief ownership of a private jet, which he had to sell after just six months due to the exorbitant maintenance costs surpassing the jet’s purchase price. He recommended that those considering luxury purchases like private jets should opt for rentals when necessary rather than ownership.”
“Whatever you do, do not own a [private] jet. Bro, owning a jet is spending at least 2-3 million dollars a year just for upkeep [maintenance]. You spend more on the maintenance than the actual jet cost,” he said.
Akon also encouraged people to treat their money as if it were meant to last a lifetime. He believed that adopting this mindset would profoundly influence how individuals manage their finances.
“This is the advice I give everybody. The money that you have now has to last you a lifetime. When you reason it that way, you are going to be very prudent.” he argued
The singer’s financial guidance sparked a swift debate on social media. While some applauded his wisdom, others held differing viewpoints.
R&B star Akon has been in the music industry for almost 20 years. He says that now, after all these years, he’s finally able to make music just for himself.
Akon was born in the USA but spent his childhood moving between New Jersey and Africa. He learned to play different musical instruments from both Western and African traditions. However, when he started his music career in the early 2000s, producers were only interested in one aspect of his background.
“At that time, one of the big things I had to distance myself from was the fact that I was African,” he tells BBC Newsbeat. “That wasn’t something they could promote in the kind of music world I was in.”
Akon became a huge commercial success with popular pop and R&B songs like “Lonely” and “Locked Up.” But he says the music industry’s financial pressures and the need to make money influenced his music.
“Everything had to be carefully planned,” he says. “It got stressful and started to feel like work.”
Since his early successes, Akon has established his own record label and launched business ventures like the Konvict Clothing line. Some of his projects, like the idea of creating a “real-life Wakanda” in Senegal with its own cryptocurrency, didn’t go as expected. However, he believes that enough has worked out, and he no longer relies on others to support him.
Making music at 50 years old is more about “the passion and love for music,” he says. He can now include “more of an African influence” in his work because there’s less pressure on him to make money.
“Music is not my main source of income now; it has fallen to maybe the tenth,” he explains.
With financial freedom, he can “infuse more culture” into his songs. The tracks on his new Afro Freaks EP represent a “significant evolution” from his earlier hits like “Lonely” and “Locked Up.”
“I can enjoy making music without dealing with the politics and the complexities of the music industry,” he adds.
Akon’s new EP heavily draws from Afrobeats, a genre that has gained global popularity thanks to artists like Davido, Wizkid, and Burna Boy.
He mentions his efforts to promote this music style, which blends African and Western influences. He even signed Wizkid to his own label in 2008. However, Akon remembers a time when US industry leaders dismissed Afrobeats.
“I recall in the early 2000s when I was trying to introduce and promote Afrobeats in America, they thought it was Reggae music,” he recalls. “It was frustrating, trying to make them understand that the African audience was substantial, and this music would be the future.”
Unfortunately, he faced resistance. It took another ten years before Afrobeats truly made its mark, with big artists like Drake and Beyonce collaborating with some of its brightest stars.
When Wizkid won a Grammy Award in 2021, Akon saw it as a vindication of his earlier efforts, saying it was “one of those ‘I told you so’ moments.”
During a recent appearance on the Drink Champs podcast hosted by N.O.R.E and DJ EFN, Senegalese-American singer Akon praised Nigerians, calling them arguably the “smartest people” in the world.
He mentioned that Nigeria has been producing a significant number of billionaires, surpassing any other country globally.
However, Akon also acknowledged that there are a few “bad apples” who have contributed to tarnishing the country’s image. He emphasized that despite the presence of these individuals, Nigerians’ intelligence is undeniable, and they possess an exceptional level of intelligence.
suggested that some of these “bad apples” may have misdirected their intelligence, leading to negative outcomes.
“If they were to gear that towards something more positive or productive… Because the ones that did, there’s more billionaires being made in Nigeria than anywhere in the world.”
Senegalese-American singer Akon has acknowledged that he initially made up his background and once pretended to be an African prince during an appearance on Drink Champs.
“I kind of used the excuse that I was a survivor because it made me feel better about it. But there was nothing for me to survive. Because my parents were actually really wealthy. I was living in Jersey. We lived in a three-story house, just me and my older brother. We had the whole house to ourselves! Now when I think about it, we were just bored as hell looking for something to do.”
As he was growing up, Akon saw friends around him selling drugs and he never understood why they would put in so much labour for such little financial incentive.
“I think a lot of my choices came from just wanting to be accepted, you know, amongst the crowd,” he said. “So that’s how I got caught into all the things that I got caught into, including cars. Because cars made me feel special. I was young, I can drive with the most elite vehicles, and I ran with the scenario that I was an African prince.”
Akin shared that the inspiration for the African prince scam came after he watched the 1988 Eddie Murphy comedy Coming to America. “After Coming to America, I was like, ‘Shiiiit!’” he explained. “That’s what motivated it!”
He said he was working at a barbershop when a man introduced him to the scam.
“Before you know it, I just copied and pasted it,” Akon laughed. “Literally like every other month I would come to school in a different car, and they were like… I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’m an African prince.’ And they believed it because of the whip that I was driving in
Back in 2010, Akon told MTV on an episode of When I Was 17 that he was a “young hustler” at the time, stealing cars or scamming money out of people.
He told people he was a “prince” so they wouldn’t question where he got all of his money, to which his brother Omar added, “People just didn’t know any better so they believed that we were princes from Africa.”
Akon is no stranger to a good ruse. Last year he admitted that he used to employ his brother Abou ‘Bu’ Thiam to perform as his double when he couldn’t make it to a show.
“Bu was my double. He was my double. This was before internet. If you saw Abou in one place and you saw me, you couldn’t tell the difference,” he said on The Morning Hustle. Asked if Bu can sing, he simply replied, “No.”
Akon has finally made up for his wrongs and gifted French Montana an authentic designer watch after he reflected on the fake one he once got him back in the day.
French took to his Instagram with a video showing him receiving a brand-new watch while at an event with Akon. In the video, a man hands the Bronx rapper a black box while Akon sits beside him.
“The word now is to make sure you get the watch in the box,” Akon said before French opened the package to see a new timepiece. In another clip shared in the post, French showed viewers he bumped into Akon, helped him show off the diamond-encrusted watch he was wearing, and asked if that was what he was getting on this meet-up.
Akon told him, “You ain’t getting a watch this year. You getting something else.” In his caption, French Montana confirmed that Akon bought him the new watch and tagged an old Instagram page called Fake Watch Busta that called out rappers with fake designer watches.
“Stop asking Akon about the watch 😂 he just pulled up on me and gave me another watch lol let’s see if he did right this time @fakewatchbusta 💚😂🤣 #motherland #africanboys.”
Akon spoke about the fake watch incident on Drink Champs. According to the him, it happened on Canal Street in New York City, when he unknowingly purchased the two fake Hublot watches for $5,000 each.
He claimed he didn’t know about designer watches and just thought they looked nice. Unfortunately, as he explained it, both he and French got played that day.
“Listen, me and French got got that day,” Akon said. “But I’m the one that lost money. I bought two of them watches, one for me and one for him.”
He continued, “N***a, I got got too. Cause he came to me and said, ‘That’s a nice watch,’ I said, ‘N***a, I got one for you too.’ Because at the time…I didn’t know what a Hublot was. I just knew that I liked that. That was just a nice watch.”
This, he believes, will develop the continent and make it the best in the world.
The Senegalese-American singer, who is on a mission to “develop Africa,” has called on people of African descent to make the continent a better place by impacting their expertise in various countries.
“My goal is to get everybody to move back to Africa. I want to get as much many African-Americans back home to Africa as I possibly can,” he disclosed.
He touted the continent as the safest place for African-Americans and added that they will no longer fight for their rights when they finally settle at home.
“I know the day they move back, everything they’re fighting for in America, they will not have to fight for again. All the struggle they struggle over there, they are going to come there with this mindset, mentality, the finances that they’ve built and invest that in Africa,” he disclosed on DEPOSIT$ with Brook England.
“Africa will be the best nation (continent) in the world,” he hammered.
In Ghana, the ‘Year of Return’ campaign launched in 2019 has witnessed an estimated 1,500 African American move to this West African state.
Akon is being trolled for his strange haircut. The Senegalese-American singer was recently spotted in Dubai with American rappers, Ja Rule and Fat Joe.
The pic of the three superstars standing shoulder to shoulder got social media users wilding. They roasted Akon after the pic made its way to Twitter.
A popular page took to the micro-blogging app and reshared the snap. Along with a red heart emoji, the handle captioned its post:
Peeps shared hilarious reactions to the snap. Many wanted to know who cut the singer’s hair, while others said he buys his “fake” hair from the same place as Canadian rapper, Tory Lanez.
@AzuriDad said:
“The roast on Akon is super hilarious.”
@WATCHUMACALLIT wrote:
“Akon got a Jim Thorpe all American Leather Helmet.”
@uplatedrinkin commented:
“Akon must be buying his fake hair from the same place as Tory Lanez. Very poor craftsmanship.”
Black Sherif has reacted to some comments passed about him by Hip-pop legend Akon.
He says he’s honoured to have caught the attention of Senegalese-American musician Akon.
The A-Lister, in an interview, said he was a tremendous admirer of Blacko and would sign him if no major label picked him up.
‘The Kwaku The Traveller’ hitmaker, in an interview with Graphic Showbiz, said, “Such comments will urge me to do more. I have received such comments from superstars like Snoop Dogg, but I am not allowing all that to get to my head.”
In addition, he noted that these compliments from these big shots humble him rather than make him feel pompous.
“I see them as compliments and a challenge for me to do more. Black Sherif is just starting, and Ghanaians and the world are about to experience something spectacular from me,” he added.
Black Sherif gained international recognition with his streak of top-charting hits, including First and Second Sermon and Kwaku The Traveller.
The first album of the Konongo native, The Villain I Never Was, is presently at the top of the charts on all digital streaming platforms, capping off a successful year for him.
He also made use of his newfound notoriety by holding a successful performance on December 21 under the name Mosama Disco.
RnB singer Akon says his much-delayed plans for Akon City – an African metropolis on the Senegalese coast – are “100,000% moving”.
Although goats are currently grazing on the site, he says that critics will look “super stupid” in the future.
In an exclusive interview with the BBC, the Smack That singer also assured supporters waiting for refunds from his Token of Appreciation cryptocurrency campaign that they will receive their money back, even if he has to pay them out of his own pocket.
Widely known for his string of noughties chart hits Akon, who was born in the United States but partly raised in Senegal, announced two ambitious projects in 2018 that were supposed to represent the future of African society.
The first was a reported $6bn (£5bn) city with boldly curvaceous skyscrapers. It was to run on the second initiative – a brand new cryptocurrency called Akoin.
But several years on both projects have faced difficulties and delays and the site where the city is proposed to be built remains a waste ground.
Image caption,Akon claims the city will be sustainable and provide employment for young people
On an overcast day in September 2020 Akon, dressed in a powder blue suit, strode confidently onto a dusty red patch of disused land. There to meet him was a gaggle of journalists from around the world who had assembled for the hitmaker’s latest launch: a supercity packed with stunning architecture.
Local people clapped as a veil was pulled back on a plaque marking the future building site. But two years on the question of whether the plans will ever come to fruition divides communities in the region.
“We thought we could work on it but at this pace, maybe our children will,” one resident of the area tells the BBC. “We remain hopeful for the project. We hope that our children will stay here to work.”
Another resident says they no longer believe in the project before adding “when it comes, if it finds us here, we’ll see how we can contribute”.
Akon City was initially compared in the press with Wakanda, the amazing African metropolis featured in the Black Panther movies and comic books. Phase one of the city containing roads, a campus, a mall, residences, hotels, a police station, a school, a waste facility and a solar power plant was supposed to be complete by the end of 2023. But after multiple delays, little on the ground appears to have changed since the launch ceremony.
“I’m only here in the presence of goats” local journalist Borso Tall tells me. “It’s completely empty… no sign of building just a long line of green trees and red earth.”
Image caption,The site where Akon City is planned is empty bar the foundation stone which was unveiled in 2020
But Akon remains adamant that his ambitious plans will still be realised.
When we meet in central London, he admits that with hindsight “I would have gotten more things in place before promoting it.”
He also blames Covid, which he says meant “everything would be pushed back two years”.
However, the world was already in the grip of the pandemic when he held the ceremony promoting Akon City to international media in August 2020.
“I plan to retire in that city,” he says confidently. “I don’t like to use the word the king of the city. But that’s what it will turn out to be.”
“We’re trying to get the city built as fast as possible,” he says, adding that he has a lease on the land for the next 50 years and that his project has “been co-signed by the current president”.
The Senegalese government’s tourist board SAPCO recently reaffirmed their commitment to the project.
“We believe in Akon city and we are all supporting Akon so the Akon city will come to life,” said Me Aliou Sow, CEO of SAPCO. “It will attract tourists and investors in the region and SAPCO is fully committed to the success of this project.”
Akon says he has changed both the construction firms and architects he is working with on the project, adding that his new partners understand Africa, the terrain and have “real credibility globally”. His overall goals remain ambitious.
“We want the big skyscrapers. My goal is to try to build something that people deem impossible in Africa, right?”
Image caption,The most recent architectural drawings of the city, pictured here, have fewer skyscrapers than previous versions
Several celebrity finance websites estimate Akon’s net worth to be between $60-80m, leading some to question where the money will come from for a project of this size. His team claim they have an international consortium in place who will fund it with private investment.
Akon said that excavation work on the site will finally start before the end of the year, adding that further announcements will be made at a youth centre he has built for residents in a local village. Construction work on Akon City he acknowledges “is yet to be fully calendered”.
The initial plans for Akon City, dubbed it “Crypto City” and in August 2020 Akon said the city’s financial infrastructure would be “built off” his own Akoin cryptocurrency. But the cryptocurrency has been plagued by its own delays and struggles.
“It wasn’t being managed properly,” he concedes. “I take full responsibility for that.”
Before launching his Akoin cryptocurrency, the Akoin website announced a pre-sale opportunity called the Token of Appreciation (TOA) campaign.
The campaign was announced over two years before the Akoin cryptocurrency itself was available. It was a fundraiser to cover the costs of launching Akoin later down the line.
Money sent for TOAs was framed as a “donation” on the Akoin TOA website page but there was a special incentive to put money in during this period. Contributors were told that for every $1 they put in they would receive up to four Tokens of Appreciation which would later convert to proper Akoin.
“I did genuinely believe in the ecosystem that they were looking to build,” says Marcus (not his real name) who lives in the UK. “Every now and again I’d put in a few thousand pounds.”
The Token of Appreciation campaign concluded in October 2019. The official Akoin Twitter feed claimed it had raised $290,000. Over two years later TOA donors were presented with a choice in the official Akoin Telegram group.
Image caption,Akoin’s early investors were initially excited by Akon’s plans for a futuristic African city
“We’re now able to give TOA holders a choice,” wrote the admin. “Receive a refund of their original donation or receive an Akoin MasterCard which will have the value of their initial donation.”
Some TOA donors have decided to wait for their promised rewards. For now they have notice of a Token of Appreciation but it doesn’t have any functionality. Others have tried to claim their money back.
“I didn’t ask for the refund, they offered the refunds,” notes Marcus, whose faith in the project was starting to flag. “The refund was meant to come a few weeks later. We are now over a year. And we’re back at the same situation we were years ago with the lack of communication and now everybody’s up in arms.”
Marcus is not alone. In the Akoin Telegram groups I’ve spoken to a number of other people around the world who say that they have asked for refunds but are still waiting to receive their money back.
“It’s extremely frustrating,” says Reggie, an American living in Asia who also donated to the campaign. “Yeah, I’ve gotten upset about this, you know, a number of times.”
I put cases like Marcus’ and Reggie’s to Akon, who denied knowing that donors to the Akoin campaign were still waiting for refunds. He claims he will get involved in rectifying the situation until TOA donors are happy.
“Even if I gotta go in my own pocket,” he adds. “I’m dead serious. I would do a world tour just to pay them all back.”
Akon: ‘I would do a world tour’ to pay back crypto investors
The Akoin cryptocurrency itself launched on Bitmart in September 2021. Its value at that time was £0.23 ($0.28) but it has fallen significantly since, preceding a crash in the wider cryptocurrency market. Today Akoin’s price is just £0.01.
There have also been questions over whether it would even be legal for Akoin to operate as the primary payment method at Akon City.
The current legal tender in Senegal is the CFA franc, which is regulated and issued by Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO), which share the money. Yahoo Finance reported last year that the “institution warned of the dangers of adopting cryptocurrency and termed it illegal”. We approached the BCEAO to comment on the legality of a city running on cryptocurrency but they didn’t respond.
“Those are a lot of the concerns even I have,” acknowledges Akon. “I want to make sure that however we involve crypto within the city is in a way that it lines up with all the rules and regulations.”
So will ordinary transactions in Akon’s proposed “Crypto City” still take place with his own crypto? It seems unclear. “We’ll have it figured out by the time the city’s up, that’s for sure,” he promises.
But after two years of waiting, not everyone is convinced.
“I think a lot of us we’ve done our research but it panned out like nothing is going on,” says Reggie. “I would like to get my funds back and just walk away”.
Ace Senegalese-American musician, Aliaune Damala Badara Akon Thiam, popularly known as Akon, has made a revelation about Ghanaian artist, Black Sheriff.
According to the Akon, Black Sheriff is his favorite musician on the African continent.
“I’m a huge fan of Black Sheriff now. Maybe ’cause he just reminded me of the energy of myself when I came out,” he said.
Recounting how he heard of ‘Kweku Frimpong,’ the celebrated artist revealed that it was through a friend from Mali.
“I remember the first record, I was in New York City when a friend of mine named Bako from Mali played me his song, I said yo, who the F is that? Like you can hear in his voice the pain, the struggle, you hear the challenges but you can just hear a ghetto kid just wanting to get out, like it’s the way he says it,” he added.
The Konvict Muzik boss also issued a warning to global music labels to act fast in signing Black Sherif before he does.
“If no major picks him up, they need to get to him before I do,” he warned.
Popular Senegalese-American musician, Akon, has opened up on undergoing a $7,500 worth of hair transplant to restore his receding hairline.
In an interview with American hip-hop personality, Bootleg Kev, the 49-year-old singer admitted that he hopped on a plane to Turkey for that particular procedure.
Akon also established that in spite of the pain, he is thoroughly impressed with the results, adding that Turkey is one the best countries for transplants, particularly for hair and teeth.
“In the beginning, my whole front was loose, it was really thin. They did the grafting. The painful part is the beginning when they gotta numb you up. That numbing ain’t no joke. They stick a needle like this big, non-stop. It looks amazing though. Turkey is known for two things, one of which is hair and the other is teeth. They’re really good on both. The same job that people are paying 40, 50 grand for, they charged me like $7,500,” he stated.
However, Akon has recently been subjected to severe backlash for allowing his brother, Abou “Bu” Thiam, to perform on his behalf when he couldn’t make it to a show.
Akon has confirmed that he got a hair transplant, and it cost him $7,500.
In an interview with Bootleg Kev, the singer admitted he went to Turkey for “a procedure” to restore his hairline.
“In the beginning, my whole front was loose, it was real thin,” the 49-year-old told Kev, who asked if it was a painful procedure. “Nah, no. The painful part is the beginning when they gotta numb you up. That numbing ain’t no joke. They stick a needle like this big, non-stop.”
Akon confirmed that they took a graft, and overall he appears happy with what the doctors did despite the pain.
“It looks amazing,” he added, to which Kev joked that Tory Lanez should’ve gone to the same doctor.
“I told him,” the artist replied. “I said, ‘Tory should’ve come to my man.’ Like, bro, you know.”
He went on to suggest Turkey is known “for two things,” one of which is hair and the other is teeth. “They’re really good on both,” he said, later divulging that he can’t grow hair on his face.
Akon also took to social media to respond to the memes that have been circulating about his hairline and took all of the jokes in good stride.
Akon has recently been on a run of rather revealing interviews, and his admission of his hair transplant comes not long after he admitted he employed his brother Abou “Bu” Thiam to perform as his double when he couldn’t make a show.
Last month, he also said that he had plans to open music schools in Africa with Michael Jackson, but then the iconic popstar passed away before they could go through with the idea.
Akon has finally addressed that time he gifted French Montana a fake watch.
“I get the watch I put one on, he came and said, ‘I got something for you bro,’” Akon explained during an appearance on Real 92.3’s Cruz Show this week. “He was happy, I was happy. We lit, we lit. Now mind you I’m not really knowing there’s specific brands [of] watches and all that, I wasn’t really a watch guy. I just saw something I liked that looked nice and I got it. French clearly went to his jeweler and got it checked out, and the jeweler was like, ‘Yo, this is fake.’”
French told his side of the story back in 2017, but Akon maintains that he had no idea it was a “fake” watch when he gifted it to the rapper.
“He was like, ‘What do you mean fake?’” Akon continued. “I was like, ‘What do you mean fake? The shit tick, don’t it? The shit work, right?’” He said it was actually a replica of a specific brand, but he had no clue.
“Not only was I upset because I paid, like, five grand for each watch… In my mind that was expensive for a watch,” Akon said. “But obviously for a Hublot that was no money, that was a huge discount. … So I’m like, ‘This ungrateful ass n***a.”
Dancehall artiste Shatta Wale believes his colleague Sarkodie should have been a bigger artiste than Wizkidor just as big.
Speaking on Showbiz A-Z, Shatta Wale said that the ‘Pizza and Burger’ rapper failed to take advantage of his relationship with record producer Akon to boost his career.
He said that he has noticed Sarkodie invest so much money into his music and his brand but that has not propelled the rapper’s career as much as he expected to.
This he said is mostly because he is an independent artiste making moves in the industry all by himself with no label to back him like his Nigerian counterpart.
Shatta Wale said he is sometimes hesitant to invest as much as Sarkodie does for his music.
He explained that this is because he has been observing the ‘Highest’ rapper and his “slow progress” is not enough motivation for him and others to do the same.
“Sarkodie is doing it, I am watching him and he is still not making it. He is doing this alone and he is using money to do it,” Shatta Wale said.
But he acknowledged that being an independent artiste is not a walk in the park and thus was grateful to his fans for their patience.
Akon admitted that he used to employ his brother Abou ‘Bu’ Thiam as his double when he couldn’t make it to a show.
In an interview on The Morning Hustle, the singer and entrepreneur was asked about T-Pain’s claims earlier this year that he used Bu as a double. “Let me clear some things up so we all know,” he said with a smile around the 20:50 minute-mark of the interview, which can be seen above. “Bu was my double. He was my double. This was before internet. If you saw Abou in one place and you saw me, you couldn’t tell the difference.”
Akon confirmed that Bu actually started out as his hype man when he first started touring, but eventually he had to start passing on shows that would pay a lot of money because he didn’t have the time. “I was like, ‘Man, all this money I’m leaving on the table,’” he continued. “We cannot leave all this money on the table.” He said he even sent his brother to perform at a Hot 97-hosted show at one point. Asked if Bu can sing, he simply replied, “No.”
Around the time they did this, Akon noted that the only way people could tell the difference between them is that Bu would wear hats and he wouldn’t.
Akon later joked that his brother Omar did the same thing, but without his permission. “That was probably the funnest part of our lives,” he recalled.
Rumors have circulated that Akon had Bu perform as his double for a while, but the claim got more traction earlier this year when T-Pain casually spoke about it during a livestream.
Akon is an R&B legend, if we’ve ever seen one. But his latest admission might have just made him that little bit more iconic.
Appearing on The Morning Hustle radio show last week, the Locked Uphitmaker was told that T-Pain previously alleged that Akon’s brother was used as a body double when he was overbooked on shows.
The 49-year-old record producer has said that Akon had so many shows offers coming in during the peak of his career as a performer that he “could not leave all this money on the table.”
Akon revealed that his brother was used as a body double when he was overbooked on shows. Credit: Sipa US/Alamy Stock Photo
So, the entrepreneur did what any person with a look-a-like sibling would do, and asked his brother, Abou Thiam, to step in for him.
When asked if those rumours were true, Akon, born Aliaune Damala Badara Akon Thiam, admitted to doing so on some occasions.
“Let me clear some things up so we all know. ‘Bu was my double. He was, yes. This was before the internet,” he reassured listeners, who surely would have been able to tell in today’s social media-centric climate whether the Akon they were watching was the real thing. “If you saw ‘Bu in one place and you saw me, you couldn’t tell the difference.”
Akon admitted that Abou Thiam would often wear a hat when he posed as him. Credit: The Photo Access/Alamy Stock Photo
Akon went on to explain “Bu started off as my hype man when we were on the road. We were booked so [much], and I was like, ‘man, all this money I’m leaving on the table. We cannot leave all this money on the table’.”
Rap Fact: Akon admits to using his brothers as body doubles when he was overbooked on shows 🤯‼️ pic.twitter.com/N38FhWIOfh
While his brother has since gone on to become the Executive Vice President of Columbia Records – who manages the likes of Harry Styles, Lil Nas X and Beyoncé, as well as launching his own label BUVISION – Akon admitted that “Bu can’t sing himself”.
“He can’t do none of that,” Akon joked of his sibling, also revealing that there was one other subtle way fans could have told the difference between the two.
“Back then nobody knew that’s how you could tell the difference, ‘Bu wears hats, I don’t.” When Bu [would] wear the hat, you can’t tell!”
Meanwhile, his other brother, Omar, also wanted in on the action – and actually took it upon himself to imitate Akon without his permission.
“Omar, he would do it without getting permission from me or Bu. Omar would be in another country, another city getting money, and I’d be like, ‘what? They booked me already!’”
Atlanta-based Ghanaian producer and musician Noble Zogli, known widely as Nektunez, has signed a label deal with Akon’s Konvict Kulture
Akon will provide professional expert services aimed at projecting and propelling Nektunez to the next phase of his career under the Konvict Kulture brand.
The signing comes at a time when Akon has spoken highly of the enormous talents on the African continent and how they are gradually taking over the world with their sound.
Speaking on the signing, Akon said; “I’m honored to be able to add Nektunez to the KONVICT movement”. I’ve never met a more humble, hard working, and talented producer like Nektunez. I was even more impressed by his artistic talents! He represents the new Africa and I’m determined to show the world his contribution to the beautiful sounds of Afrobeat and Amapiano”
Nektunez also expressed his excitement at the new partnership and promised to deliver to the expectation of everyone.
“I am excited to start my next chapter with Akon; someone I have always looked up to growing up. He shares my vision and has passion for the brand of music I’m creating. I can’t wait to continue sharing my music on a global scale. Now it’s time to go to work and I can’t wait to see what we accomplish together,” he said.
In 2021, Nektunez made a huge entry into the global music space as his production Ameno Amapiano (Remix), a casual mix he did to the globally acclaimed song by French new-age musical project Era, blew up debuting at number 7 on the Afrobeats US Billboard charts.
Currently sitting with over 10 billion views on Tik Tok as of February 2022, Ameno Amapiano (Remix) went straight to Number 1 on the Billboard world digital sales chart for a historical 8 weeks, Number 1 on global Shazam, Number 1 song on iTunes in 22 countries including UK, Germany and USA. The song also top the Apple Music charts in 39 countries.
Akon has revealed that he and Michael Jackson had plans to open music schools across Africa prior to his death in 2009.
“It started off as a concept, me and Mike was actually speaking about creating music universities all throughout Africa,” he told TMZ in a recent interview. “I’m giving them the tools, the instruments, the knowledge of the business. Just kind of help them with facilities that help them polish up their skills, because Africa got so much talent. This is one of the main motivations when I went into Nigeria back then, the whole start and support all those young artists for afrobeat and things like this.”
Unfortunately, the two were never able to realize their plans when Jackson died suddenly from cardiac arrest in June, 2009. At the time of his death, he was planning an extensive series of comeback shows across the globe.
“The schools haven’t happened yet, it was just a conversation that we had but it’s something I do want to follow-up on,” Akon added, upon which he was asked if he would still want to go through with the schools because of MJ’s complicated legacy. “If people knew who he really was and understood the story behind it, that wouldn’t be a legacy question like you know what Mike did for the culture. It shouldn’t even be a thought, but ultimately the powers that be in America work a little different when it comes to Black and brown people.”
While Jackson’s legacy as far as his contributions to music is difficult to dispute, his place in pop culture was called into question following the airing of Leaving Neverland in 2019. The documentary looked at the accusations that Jackson sexually abused two men, Wade Robson and James Safechuck, when they were children. During his career, Jackson faced allegations of child sexual abuse in the mid ‘90s and the early ‘00s.
Jackson settled a lawsuit with an accuser in ‘93, and later went to trial over charges he abused then 13-year-old Garin Arivo in 2005. He was found not guilty at the time.
Akon previously spoke of the plans to open music schools in Africa in a recent interview with HipHopDX. He said he plans to build a school in Akon City, his in-development $4 billion city in Senegal. “Even in Akon City in the educational district the first one will be built in there and I’m naming it after the Michael Jackson Foundation,” he said. “So I’m gonna be naming it MJ University.”
