After Akon would have 37 songs on The Billboard Hot 100 charts including 2 number 1 hits with
“I Wanna Love You” & “Don't Matter”.
After Akon would become the first artist to simultaneously hold the number 1 & number
After Akon would collaborate with David Guetta, Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Gwen Stefani, Madonna
and even Michael Jackson!
After Akon would hold the Guinness Book of World Record for being the #1 selling ringtone
artist in the world.
After he would sign T-Pain AND an unknown artist at the time, by the name of Lady Gaga
Akon quickly became one of the music industry’s most dominant hit makers with songs like “Don’t
Matter,” “Smack That,” and “I Wanna Love You.” But after a few years of killing
the charts, he took a step back from music. And since then, while you may not have heard
about him, Akon has become a modern day superhero changing the world. And yet a lot of media
outlets have still failed to cover the absolutely incredible things this man is doing. We will
get into all of that. So if you’re wondering where Akon is today, you’re going to want
to watch this video. Because even though he may not be making music, he is still lighting
it up! Well at least Africa, I'll explain in a second.
What’s going on guys? It’s your boy Michael McCrudden here for you on Where Are They Now?
I’ll be your host as we take you through the career of Akon and we’ll show you what
he’s up to in 2019. This is a brand new series for the channel so let us know who
you want us to cover next. We ran a poll on the community tab for this channel and you
guys requested this video. Others we've done in the past include Lil Tay and one on Bam
Margera so you can check those one out after you’re finished this one. Alright, let’s
get into the video.
Akon was born on April 16, 1973 in St. Louis, Missouri but lived in Senegal, West Africa
as a child until he was around 7 years old. And there the living conditions, well they
were pretty bad. Akon says they had to get their clean water from wells, and the family’s
of his parents worked in the arts. His mother was a dancer and his father was a well-known
Jazz percussionist. This influenced Akon to start loving music from an early age. Akon
began to sing as a teenager in Jersey City before attending Clark Atlanta University
in Georgia but he never took music very seriously.
But school wasn't cutting it for Akon and he dropped out after one semester and began
focusing on making it in the music business. Unfortunatlyt he got caught up with the wrong
crowd and served a short period of time in jail.
It was after Akon got locked up that he was inspired to write songs in his cell and he
also came up with a master plan. It was the songs he wrote in jail that helped Akon land
a record deal. His debut album “Trouble” became a huge success with singles like “Locked
Up” and “Lonely,” but it was his second album “Konvicted” that took him to the
next level, with the songs “Smack That” and “I Wanna Love You.” Akon was everywhere,
featuring on some of the biggest songs on the charts, and touring the world with Gwen
Stefani. He even had a posthumous duet with Michael Jackson.
Apparently when the two first started working on the song together, Michael Jackson and
Akon went to the movies together but Michael was in disguise. Akon told CNN:
“I am signing autographs and laughing, thinking 'you don't even know who is beside me'"
Of course, Akon’s career had some controversies. In Trinidad and Tobago, he was on stage dancing
with a girl who turned out to be underage. He references the incident on the song “I’m
Sorry” which became a pretty big hit. He also threw a 15-year-old boy off stage in
New York and was ordered to perform 65 hours of community service in 2007 for the incident.
It was also found out that Akon, who had based much of his career on being a convict, was
not the convict he claimed to be. An article released by The Smoking Gun accusing Akon
of embellishing his past. They uncovered that he had been arrested around 6 times and did
receive a felony charge for gun possession, which he got three years-probation for. And
he did serve 6 and a half months in jail for possession of a stolen BMW, but after all
charges were dropped, he was released. This seemed to be different from the original story
that he was telling about serving three years in jail and writing his first album while
being locked up. Akon was accused of exaggerated his criminal background so much that he was
and he had stepped away from the musical spotlight to focus on other endeavors. Where Akon really
began to see success, is from the artists who he signed. Akon had signed Toronto artist
Kardinall Official to a distribution deal, who had a successful run off Akon featured
hits that blasted him into mainstream superstardom. Their song “Dangerous” was a top 5 hit
on Billboard and certified triple platinum. Another one of Akon’s early protégés was
T-Pain, who had a MASSIVE hit streak including “Buy U A Drank,” which went number one
on the Hot 100 charts.
But it was actually a non-hip-hop act that became Akon’s most lucrative signing yet.
In 2007 Akon signed Lady Gaga to a joint distribution deal. And if you know anything about Lady
Gaga’s career, it went pretty well. Akon said in an interview that:
“She’s pretty much retired me.”
And many fans began to think that’s exactly what Akon eventually did. He never released
his fourth studio album “Stadium” after announcing it in 2010. He ended up dropping
a slew of singles over the next few years but none of them really gained much traction
in the mainstream. So did he retire from music? Where is he now? Let’s get into what happened
to Akon?
To be fair, Akon kind of became a modern day super hero.
In 2013, Akon visited his grandma in Senegal, Africa and saw the struggles that his hometown
was facing. There was still no light and no clean drinking or bathing water. Akon couldn’t
bear to see his family living like this, so he offered to bring his Grandma to America
obviously take a lot of money, and while Akon had some Gaga cash, he didn’t have enough
political interest, and a lot of people didn’t want to see a celebrity come into their world
and make change so easily. Akon didn’t really want to get involved in situations that could
cause him a lot more problems than he had originally signed up for. So instead, he pitched
the idea to solar energy producers in China, who were so impressed that they gave Akon
The original goal was to light up a million homes within the year. And after receiving
more money, he was able to provide 16 million Africans in 15 countries electricity every
day.
Akon eventually teamed up with Shell, one of the biggest fuel and energy producers in
North America to continue the project. As of 2018, Akon had already helped nearly 80
million people receive light worldwide. The project is fittingly called “Akon Lights
Africa”
His company became the fastest growing solar powered electricity provider in the world.
In a 2013 interview with CNN, Akon said that at the height of his fame, he felt like he
was letting Africa down:
"I was the first to break it internationally, on that level, from Africa. Africa was really
expecting me to represent them well and at that time I don't think I was doing that."
But today, he spends most of his time helping Africa build up their global reputation and
rebranding Africa to the global community. Akon also created the Konfidence foundation
to help build schools and promote health for the children of Senegal.
Today, Akon doesn’t wear any of his jewelry besides a Rolex that was a gift from his friend.
And instead, he is focused on making the biggest changes that he can in the world. As of recent
Akon just dropped a music video on World Star and via his own YouTube channel titled Wakanda.
In the video there are plenty of African themes and even stars Michael Blackson. So it looks
like Akon is gearing up for a big comeback in 2019 and a new album drop. Damn, the game
has changed a lot in the last decade. Akon also
Recently, announced the formation of Akonik Label Group, distributed by BMG. This artist-founded
label group is comprised of four distinct record labels: Akonda (Afrobeats), Akonik
(U.S.), Jamakon (Caribbean) and Ke Lo Ke (Latin America) and is the first time an artist has
established a global record label group dedicated to multiple genres.