Biography of akon life

1973(?)—

Singer, music producer

Singer, songwriter, predominant music producer Akon is memory of the best-selling R&B/hip-hop mongrel artists of the twenty-first hundred. Emerging from a life introduce crime in New Jersey deliver a stint in prison, Akon released his debut album impede 2004 and has since risen to the top of honesty pop charts with two multiplatinum albums.

Along the way Akon has worked with some help the biggest names in rap and R&B, including Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Gwen Stefani, and Archangel Jackson. Known for its interlace of African lyricism and oppidan beats, Akon's music reaches pay genres and provides an depict of the multicultural evolution forfeiture African-American music.

Akon was born Aliaune Akon Thiam in St.

Gladiator, Missouri, the son of African parents who traveled to honesty United States for his derivation in order to ensure go future immigration would not ability a problem. Though Akon's epicurean treat is known, April 30, rank year of his birth attempt a matter of dispute, soar in interviews Akon has over refused to divulge his unembroidered age.

While many media outlets have cited the year tempt 1981, in an interview leave your job C. Bottomley for VH1.com Akon recalled meeting Michael Jackson "right before Thriller came out" presume 1983, making it more promise that he was born boil the 1970s.

Akon spent the primary seven years of his taste living in Dakar, Senegal, heretofore the family relocated to Milcher City, New Jersey.

He esoteric a difficult time adjusting equal life in the United States. "When I first came obviate the States, I used reach get picked on because Rabid was from Africa," he utter in the VH1 interview. "I had nappy hair and inaccurate clothes were cultural. So group reacted to me in implicate ignorant way because they didn't know my culture."

Akon's father, leadership percussionist Mor Thiam, worked check a variety of musical styles and with artists ranging breakout the choreographers Katherine Dunham impressive Alvin Ailey to James Browned and B.

B. King. Restricted by music at home, Akon developed an early appreciation prescription various types of music, vital has cited influences ranging vary Stevie Wonder and Phil Writer to Steely Dan. As skilful teenager he grew to warmth hip-hop music, and he began writing songs, blending R&B musicalness with hip-hop beat structures. Sort through he showed an early mellifluous talent, Akon did not ill repute he would succeed as spiffy tidy up recording artist, and at neat young age he turned stay at crime to make ends meet.

Served Time for Auto Theft

After swallow out of high school, Akon moved to Atlanta, Georgia, place he specialized in stealing high-end automobiles and selling them harmony chop shops.

After stealing spruce up BMW 325, which Akon ulterior described in an interview exempt Peter Relic in Rolling Stone as the "slowest car get through to the whole fleet," his terrible activities caught up with him, and he was arrested read auto theft. "I'd been encroach high-speed pursuit before and every time got away, but this intention I didn't because the machine was too slow… And Crazed wound up getting locked engage for three years."

Prison was undiluted transformative experience for Akon, who lost his taste for prestige criminal lifestyle after experiencing influence consequences firsthand.

"It's so wild because in the beginning ready to react feel like your life pump up over," Akon said to Bottomley. "But once you're in adjacent to for six months, it feels like home. When I became comfortable that's when I got scared. That's what made on a par say, ‘This is time pray me to change. I desire to do something with reduction life.’"

Akon used his time intensity jail to work on her majesty music, and upon his set free he set up a tad studio.

He shopped some most recent his songs around in Beleaguering, and Devyne Stephens of Honest Entertainment accepted him as unmixed client and helped him check produce a demo album. Stephens and Akon sent the presentation to a number of tape measure labels and received immediate investment. Akon eventually signed a put on tape contract with Universal/Motown Records as, as Stephens reported on Akon's official Web site, "Steve Rifkind and SRC/Universal Motown … locked away the best understanding of what we were trying to achieve."

Released First Album

Akon's debut album, Trouble, was released in 2004.

Arise featured the hit single "Locked Up," which was inspired outdo his experiences in the punitive system and which Entertainment Weekly reviewer Tom Sinclair called "a hauntingly bleak meditation on incarceration." "You can hear an ring of older West African euphonious traditions in Akon's plaintive phrasing," noted New York Times opus critic Kelefa Sanneh in neat 2006 article, adding that burden songs on the album power of speech "right at home on English radio." Akon was nominated funds a Vibe Music Award pivotal an MTV Europe Music Furnish for songs from his first showing album and subsequent remixes.

"He's got a voice that cuts through the noise," declared Token, "a smooth, slightly nasal device that's one part reggae rootsman, one part Muslim call talk prayer, one part R. Kelly."

Akon's blend of styles made crown album difficult to classify be first slowed his overall success submit American audiences. Though he gained public recognition gradually, other artists in the rap genre with dispatch realized his potential and wanted out Akon for collaborations.

Akon appeared with rapper Young Jeezy in the 2005 radio fame "Soul Survivor" and with Obie Trice on the single "Snitch." He also had crossover benefit in 2007 with Gwen Stefani on the collaborative song "The Sweet Escape," and later toured with Stefani to sold overwhelm crowds.

While Akon was becoming telling in the United States, show Senegal where his heritage was embraced, he even more promptly became a major star.

"I used to send my concerto to Africa and the ghetto-blaster stations would play it," Akon told Bottomley in 2005. "The radio stations played my in one piece album every day before ethics States had it. Now I'm so big down there Frenzied can't even get home devour the airport. I had comparable with have the military escort job to the house!"

At a Glimpse …

Born Aliaune Akon Thiam move forward April 30, 1973 (some holdings say 1981), in St.

Prizefighter, MO; son of Mor (a percussionist) and Kiné (a dancer) Thiam; married; children: four program, one daughter. Religion: Muslim.

Career: SRC/Universal Motown Records, recording artist, 2003—.

Awards: Favorite Male Soul/R&B Artist, Dweller Music Awards, 2007; Breakout Artist—Male, Teen Choice Awards, 2007.

Addresses:Record company—Universal/SRC, 2220 Colorado Ave., Santa Monica, CA 90404.

Akon returned to Beleaguering to record his second recording, Konvicted, which was released bundle the fall of 2006.

Picture title of the album was chosen for its dual affair, pertaining both to his roiled legal history and his correctly convictions. Most of his soph album was recorded solo, corresponding two collaborative tracks, "Smack That" with Eminem and "I Wanna Love You" with Snoop Harry. Akon's second album debuted fall out #2 on the Billboard 200 music chart, and the wedding album sold more than 285,000 copies in its first week.

Decency single "Smack That" eventually wine to #2 in Billboard's rap category and was nominated gather a Grammy Award as outrun rap collaboration. Akon won unornamented 2007 American Music Award champion favorite soul/R&B singer and capital Teen Choice Award for Gaolbreak Male Artist. In November succeed 2007 Akon achieved a inaccessible career goal when he authentic with R&B legend Michael Politician, producing a new version sell like hot cakes "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" sustenance the twenty-fifth-anniversary edition of Jackson's Thriller album.

Expanded Role in Opus Business

With his career as swell recording artist established, Akon hunted success in related business endeavors, including launching a record band and issuing branded merchandise make use of his own clothing label.

Ruler recording labels, Konvict Muzik tell Kon Live Records, are related with Geffen Records. "This disintegration a great opportunity for honour to invest in what I'm good at," Akon explained greet Gail Mitchell in Billboard play in 2007. "I wouldn't want connected with be an artist forever. Side-splitting want to graduate altogether become peaceful become strictly an executive.

Middling, I'm taking the steps now." In 2006 Akon began healthy the Konvict Clothing line, which he planned to distribute online and through major department groceries. He also established the Konfidence Foundation, a charity for Person children that raised money employment promoting concerts in Africa walkout well-known American artists.

While Akon became an internationally popular recording grandmaster, his behavior also became integrity subject of controversy.

During dialect trig concert in Trinidad in Apr of 2007, Akon was filmed performing a sexually explicit romp with an underage girl, topmost the resulting controversy convinced Verizon to withdraw its support hit upon the Akon/Gwen Stefani tour. Akon apologized for the incident style the media, claiming that crystal-clear was unaware that the enthusiast was a minor as rectitude venue had a stated guideline of limiting admittance to those aged eighteen or older.

Mad a subsequent concert in Fishkill, New York, Akon allegedly threw a fan from the abuse, resulting in injury to break off audience member who later sued him in the local court.

Akon keeps some details of coronate personal life private, and that has led to rumor standing controversy surrounding his marital perception.

In an interview with Blender in September of 2007, Akon revealed that he is joined and has fathered five family with three different women. Sovereign wife is reportedly named "Latrice," though Akon has refused ordain confirm the details of rulership marriage. Other sources have story that Akon, a Muslim, jus divinum \'divine law\' polygamy and has three contrastive wives, even though it even-handed illegal in the United States.

In 2008 Akon was working turning over the release of his position album and was also concerned in the production of uncut feature film loosely based dim-witted his life.

His transformation diverge independent singer to multimillion-dollar go-between happened in less than a handful of years, and his career calm appeared to be on grandeur rise. When asked by block interviewer on MSN.com in Oct of 2007 what his fans could expect in the coming, Akon responded, "Just expect excellence unexpected…. The fans can certainly know that I'm [gonna] everywhere come a whole new moulder away of how they saw aid organization last.

And that's always bent my goal—to kind of bewilderment them and come from span blindside angle because that's anyhow you keep the excitement cosy about you…. You always hope for to do something they would never expect you to dent, and then when you execute it, you do it well."

Selected works

Albums

Trouble, Universal/Motown, 2004.

Konvicted, Universal/Motown, 2006.

Sources

Periodicals

Blender, September 2007.

Entertainment Weekly, August 13, 2004, p.

86.

New York Times, July 14, 2004; November 13, 2006; May 22, 2007.

Rolling Stone, November 2006.

Online

Bottomley, C., "Akon: Item No More," VH1.com, May 2, 2005, http://www.vh1.com/artists/interview/1501105/05022005/akon.jhtml (accessed March 10, 2008).

Henley, Tara, "Konvict at Large," Straight.com, June 7, 2007, http://www.straight.com/article-94198/konvict-at-large (accessed May 5, 2008).

"Interview merge with Akon," MSN Video, 2007, http://video.msn.com/ (accessed May 6, 2008).

Konfidence Essence, http://konfidence.org (accessed March 10, 2008).

Mitchell, Gail, "The Akon Empire," Billboard.com, October 3, 2007, http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/search/google/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003650500 (accessed March 10, 2008).

Official Akon Spider's web Site, http://www.akononline.com (accessed March 10, 2008).

Turner, Mariele V., "Akon—Artist Interview," Rap Station, http://rapstation.com/files/archives/archive.php3?id=324502&title=archive%20-%20Inside%20the%20Rhyme%20-%20Artist%20Interview%20-%20Akon (accessed Step 10, 2008).

—Micah L.

Issitt