Akon believes that Africa could be the strongest nation in the world if African-Americans moved back there, and he’s on a mission to make it happen.
The “Locked Up” singer made his plans clear during an interview with REVOLT‘s Deposit$ podcast that recently went viral.
In the clip, Akon explained that the continent has all the resources – they just need the people.
“My goal is to get everybody to move back to Africa. That’s my goal,” he said. “I wanna get as many African-Americans back home to Africa as I possibly can, because I know the day they move back, everything they fighting for in America – they will not have to fight for over there.
“All the struggle that they struggled [in America] … they gon’ come there with this mindset, with this mentality, with the finances that they built, the equity in life and bring it back and invest that in Africa?”
He continued: “Man, Africa could be the strongest nation in the world if y’all went back home. Because we got everything that it takes to be that. We got the resources, we got the land, we got the population. And together we got the strength and we got the know-how. Like why we ain’t doing that?”
As 2022 came to a close, the singer came under fire after he claimed that African performers were better than their American counterparts.
The claim was made during an appearance on The ZeZe Millz Show, where he spoke on a range of topics, and said that African performers were just “a little different.”
“We a little different when it comes to stage presence,” Akon said. “Now in America? Oh yeah, them n-ggas gonna be wobbling, pants hanging half down, bored as hell, half asleep ’cause they high as hell. But in Africa, I mean look at these YouTube clips of all these kids from Uganda, these kids are performers.”
“So for us, it comes naturally to watch the kids from Africa. It’s in their blood. Performing is like second nature for us,” he continued, before crowning Black Sherif and Fireboy DML as “the new generation of African talent.”
Twitter flooded with reactions to Akon’s controversial take, with personality Van Lathan among those who called the singer’s comments disrespectful.
“It always comes back to shitting on Black Americans, especially after they’ve made millions imitating Black Americans,” he wrote.
Ebro Darden added: “This is framed in a way to trigger me, lemme chill. @Akon, you’re my guy and you can’t mean African-Americans in general? Ain’t no way!”
Other reactions included Black skincare influencer Lateef Saka, who wrote: “Akon cosplayed as a black American for the majority of his career so him saying this is wild. Let the Black Americans cook him (without xenophobia pls).”
[via]
