R&B singer Akon is hyping his centrally planned community in Senegal, the country of his childhood, promising that every African American who invests with him will become a millionaire. In addition, he says if they collectively leave the U.S. for Africa, they could do real damage to the country that has oppressed them so much.
The 50-year-old artist, whose real name is Aliaune Damala Badara Thiam, was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and spent much of his childhood in Senegal. Consequently, he is a big believer in Africa.
“If you’re coming from America or Europe or elsewhere in the diaspora and you feel that you want to visit Africa, we want Senegal to be your first stop,” Akon said in 2020 of the reported $6 billion project.
The “Angel” singer is so sure about Africa that he has planned the construction of a new city in Senegal. He launched his settlement in 2020 with the cooperation of the country of Senegal with the hopes of creating a high-tech community with an economy based on his “Akoin” cryptocurrency.
The project is a perfect way for black Americans to advance themselves, the rapper claims. While he has faced setbacks thanks to the pandemic and the faltering world economy, the community is still supposedly on a ten-year building plan.
Akon — who has been repeatedly accused of mistreating women and in 2008 was seen on video punching a female fan in the face — was recently heard selling his pan-African city idea on a podcast called REVOLT. During the show, the singer claimed that the African continent is the “holy grail” for black Americans because its people need “everything.”
“Africa is in a position where if African Americans take position now, every single African American would be a millionaire without even thinking twice because there’s nothing that’s not needed over there,” Akon said. “So, you guys come with the discipline, you guys come with the knowledge, you come with the resources.”
The singer, who claimed in 2020 he was contemplating a run for president against Donald Trump, said that black people are the driving force behind America’s economy and could do the same in Africa.
We literally built America with our bare hands. Our labor, our sweat, our blood. But we’ve never — not only did we never get reparations for it, we never even got credit for it. We never even got recognized for it. And I think that’s what builds so much animosity and anger within our community itself, because we know how much our contribution is worth, but we never got our just due for what [sic] the contribution given.
“I mean, you name it. We’re leading in every single sector,” he told the podcast hosts. “Just imagine if we all just decided to just take all our bags, withdrew [sic] all our money, and go to Africa. Where would America be today? It would collapse overnight.”
Akon added that his planned Senegal city is a template for the future of Africa.
“The whole idea is to create what the future of Africa should be,” the rapper said. “We have all the resources, we have the manpower, we definitely have the population. So it was just a matter of putting something in a country that can start and pretty much scale out to every other country — that we can copy and paste or at least the idea.”
Despite Akon’s enthusiasm, American black Americans may find Senegal to be quite “foreign” to them in many ways. West African Senegal’s economy is driven by mining and agriculture and the country is 96 percent Muslim. Its official language is French, though English is taught in schools as a second language. Portuguese Creole is also widely spoken.
Still, Senegal is one of the most stable countries in Africa. It has little political strife and is a democracy headed by a president who is elected to a five-year term. Being nearly completely Muslim, there is little fear of terrorism or regional conflict.
However, since the pandemic put a serious dent in its tourism sector and the war in Ukraine is hampering its exports, Senegal is currently seeing a very slow economic recovery.
In the late 2000s, Akon was busted for exaggerating his criminal record to market himself. He claimed to have been a “notorious” car theft ringleader who got locked up for almost five years in prison. However, The Smoking Gun combed through his records to find one conviction for gun possession with a sentence of three years’ probation — and then several months in prison for alleged auto theft before prosecutors dropped all charges against him.
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