Good read: Akon Biography

[mauzip]

Music and mayhem from the heart and soul of a rebel who finally brings the industry closer to the Motherland.

Meet the new Senegal sensation.

Every artist has a story to tell, and somewhere along his or her odyssey are elements that make their story slightly different from the next. Good artists tend to take those elements and create their artwork, their self-portraits and expressions of life. Aliaune "Akon" Thiam, pronounced [Ali-une] is no exception. The West African (Senegal) native has many of those unique elements that surely make his story a lot different from the rest of today's artist that arose from the everyday hustle of the streets. His father, Mor Thiam was a famed jazz musician that traveled from Africa to the states with "Alvin and The Dance Company." Opting to have his children in the states to avoid immigration problems he immediately sent his youngsters back to Senegal after birth, "Nigga, I'm so glad he did that. Every time my mom was about to have a baby or whatever she would always make sure all of us were born in the states, so we'll all have citizenship," says Akon.

His aura is refreshing as he takes me down memory lane from when he was just a child getting picked on by his peers to experiencing his first taste of independence and all the things that sometimes follow. Like his first trip to the joint for stealing cars out in Jersey, and recalling meeting the man that would change his life forever while standing on a corner in ATL. Now, with all of the legal troubles and juvenile intentions behind him, he finds himself content with his home at Universal Records, and humor in the irony of his past. There's no denying his roots, and if you somehow overlook his strong African features; the very dark complexion, accompanied by his ancestral accent, then his impressions of the New World would tell you that this cat isn't from around here.

Making his way back to the states when he was seven, Akon wound up in Jersey City where he literally had to fend for himself because the neighborhood heads wasn't really feelin' the new kid on the block, "when I came here I had to adjust. I had like this crazy ass accent, nigga was mad black you know what I'm sayin'--lookin' real African. Niggas use to clown me in high school," he laughs. It didn't take long before Akon learned street ethics, "after a while man you can only take so much before you gotta' start laying cats down just for respect." Fighting for respect often got Akon into trouble and he would ultimately find himself kicked out of high school.

His case is not the story of the abandoned son in need of his father that caused him to get led astray, in fact, Akon's father supported him and his brother. When his father decided to move to Atlanta he gave them the choice of coming to the “Dirty South” or staying in Jersey. The deal was too sweet for them to pass up, all they had to do was go to school and pops would pay the rent, "me and my brother was like shit, we gone stay here. So can you imagine a nigga going through high school with a three-story house all to they self and a car; that four years was ridiculous, that's why I got into so much trouble," he proclaims with a gleaming smirk flashing his pearly whites.

Well adjusted to the states now, Akon only feared one thing; getting knocked. Back in Senegal he remembers his uncle being notorious for staying in some shit, but most of all he remembered his uncle’s horrific stories of jail that haunted Akon, "I was terrified of jail, because jails in Africa is nothing like jail here. You in an 8”x 8” and they'll fit about seven people up in there, ain't no beds, no bunks, just concrete floor. There ain't no toilets; like you gotta' shit in the corner. If you gotta' piss, you gotta' piss in the corner. If the piss just happen to drizzle down to your side where you sleepin' then you either wipe it down with your clothes or sleep on top of it, or you Debo (Tiny Lister’s character in Friday) somebody else for they corner." Akon admits that the first time he got pinched in Jersey he was crying like a baby wiping rough toilet tissue across the asshole. But it was after his epiphany with jails here in the states that he decided crime truly didn't pay, "nigga I get up in that jail, nigga that jail was like a hotel to me," and after that it was a wrap. Akon would practically conjure up his own criminal record. In and out of jail: going through trials, being transported from Jersey to Chicago, and to Atlanta would go on for several years before realizing there had to be something better to do with his life.

After finishing school in Jersey Akon moved to Atlanta to stay with his pops, and again he would be up to the same ol' stunts. But now he began to reevaluate his life, and even though he had always dabbled with music while in Jersey, he began to get a little more serious about putting his skills to work and ridding himself of the mayhem that plagued him in his relationship with the streets. "When I got to Atlanta I started thinking more about the music thing, but at the same time I was still on the corner. Throughout the whole time I was always doing music, even back in Jersey I use to go in and out the studios here and there," he recalls. But doing music alone wouldn't change his life, there had to be some sort of intervention. You know every artist whose either made a platinum record or even signed with a major label caught that big break, met the right person or just happened to be in the right place at the right time. Well for Akon it was just the same. Remember how Nas talked about seeing Puffy—oops, P. Diddy ride up in Queens with the fancy cars and shit before he was put on, well, the elements in Akon's story are very much similar. Only in his case it was Divine Stevens that rolled up on the corner flashin' nice cars and phat stacks.

Fast-forward the story a bit and the two became like Crocket and Tubbs. Still unaware of Divine's profession at the time (choreographer for Usher, P. Diddy, Mariah Carey etc.) Akon almost blew his opportunity when he got locked up for the last time. Divine saved his ass by paying for some good lawyers that gave him one last crack at changing his path. After a sit down and a heart-to-heart between the two, Akon focused on making a career out of music.

Drawing influences from various musical sources including his father, Akon's work is eclectic, a collaboration from within his own realm of emotions and thought, putting together a vocal documentary of his journey from Senegal to North America, "I grew up listening to all different kinds of music, like from Reggae, Calypso, Meringue, Rock, Alternative, Country; like I listen to all that--blues. The whole album is like my life story chopped down a little bit, but stretched out." His album is suitably entitled "Trouble" and though he proclaims to be calm and collective his music is anything but that. The first single “Belly Dance” is a club banga’ that'll definitely scrape the wallflowers up and get all that azz shakin' to its rhythmic beat. Surprisingly, unlike many artists from different music genres that incorporate hip-hop into their formula, Akon rejected the "rubbish" early on, and it wasn't until after he became entrenched in his lawlessness that he really began to take notice of hip-hop, "I never took it serious because I ain't even like hip-hop at the time. I ain't like it until I started getting into mad trouble and I kinda' related to the shit that these niggas was going through. I started liking the shit." From there on he tried adamantly to blend hip-hop with his own style, "I'm trying to create hip-hop, but the fact that I was raised around so many different types of music it naturally couldn't happen. Everything would be mixed in that one little sound, I was confused trying to figure it out." But what he and Divine did figure out was that he had something special that could get the attention of the masses, "throughout all this time I've been recording records, every time I go through some shit I just write about it and make a record. So I had about eight albums done before I even approached to get a situation." From there, that's all Divine needed to make the necessary moves in order to give Akon his big break. He called Kenney Burns, VP of Roc-A-Fella Records who called Steve Rifkind; he let Rifkind listen to his music over the phone and the rest is history—a done deal. And at the end of the day Akon is all smiles, but really, can you blame him?

Jason Maymon is a Chicago-based writer.






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[Diabolical]

Bit too much to read just now.

[RXL]

Didn't really read the whole thing because it was really long.  His "Locked Up" song with Styles is pretty tight.

[The Predator]

I seen that name akon pop up a couple of times. Im a check it later it looks like a good read, come back to this with a cup of tea.