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Akon has opened up about spreading some much-needed positivity with his new music, and looking back at the lyrics of his legendary past songs.
The 51-year-old has been a staple of the industry since his single, Locked Up, hit the charts in 2004, and has worked with names including Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Gwen Stefani and David Guetta on mammoth hits over the years.
Aside from music, he has also been hard at work building up his own futuristic city, aka Akon City, in Senegal, which runs on his very own cryptocurrency, named Akoin.
Although the singer has been in the studio consistently ever since his debut album, Trouble, dropped in 2004, he has staged a huge new comeback to basically just cheer everyone up – and, let’s face it, he’s definitely the man for the job.
Speaking to Metro about his new song, aptly titled Akon’s Beautiful Day, the music icon revealed that he noticed that the vibes in the world have been ‘so low’ recently, so he tasked himself with improving the mood.
‘It just needed to happen,’ he told us. ‘The idea of where the energy is globally today, and everybody’s household, everybody’s community, everybody’s heart, everybody’s mind. We just feel like the world, the vibration is so low.
‘When you look at music itself, I wanted this to be the anthem of positivity, because I think music plays a huge role in uplifting people’s spirits.
‘When you listen to music, it should feel good, it should make you smile, it should make you feel happy. This is one of those records that I wanted to put in place that allowed people to at least take a sense of positivity within a day when they listen to songs like this.’
In the track, there is a subtle nod to his Lonely hit in the first verse, with the lyrics, ‘If I take the blame, put it all on me. I just pray that I don’t end up lonely.’
Unpacking the reference, which comes after Trouble celebrated its 20-year anniversary, he continued: ‘Oh, my goodness. I didn’t realize 20 years passed me by. What?! It’s so crazy.
‘It was so surreal to me because I just could not believe it’s been 20 years – to this day it doesn’t [feel that long]. So, when I go back to lyrics all through this new album, I’m referencing a lot of songs from the song catalog that I’ve done in the past.
‘I like that because it opens the door for the tie in of my older fans versus my newer generation fans, who probably just discovered me for the first time.’
Despite being in the industry for some years beforehand, Trouble instantly shot Akon to worldwide fame, thanks to the huge success of tracks Lonely, Locked Up and Belly Dancer (Bananza).
He followed the 2004 album two years later with Konvicted, which included steamy bangers Smack That and I Wanna Love You – which also has a much more NSFW title.
While we were all belting them out without a care in the mid-00s, it’s fair to say that some of the lyrics may be seen as a little inappropriate, and downright awkward, in present day.
In his hit collaboration with Snoop Dogg, he can be heard singing, ‘I see you winding and grinding up on that pole. I know you see me looking at you and you already know, I wanna f**k you.’
However, the musician has no regrets about some of the risqué parts, insisting: ‘I look at it like it was a part of who I was, and is who I am. I think with time, people will change. With maturity, people will make different types of decisions on what they’re dealing with currently.
‘I would never condone anyone to change their past, because their past is where they make who they are, it’s what makes them who they are today. But for the most part, I do love it all, and I feel like the acceptance of what that was, lyrically at that time, was necessary for me to become what I am today.
‘I definitely never regret it at all, no.’
After taking some time away from the charts, Akon came back with a bang last month, dropping Akon’s Beautiful Day in a bid to spread some good vibes when we need it the most.
The hit, something he deemed as the ‘anthem the world needs right now’ shot right up the Billboard TikTok charts, proving that he is definitely right about that.
Ahead of an album launch in February, which we cannot wait for, the superstar shed light on how music has changed since he first burst onto the scene, and how this inspired him to get back into the studio to fix issues.
‘It all started with me being demotivated,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t really motivated with what I was hearing on the radios recently. And I just felt like, music just doesn’t feel the way it used to. Every artist is just dropping singles after singles, there’s no body of work, no albums no more with an experience.
‘I was like, man, I’ve got to bring that back. One thing I realized about the music industry is that it’s a very bandwagon-driven type of industry. If we do one thing that works, then everybody follows suit and tries to do it as well.
‘So, while we had all this low frequency music coming out, I said, let me just put out the most amazing positive record. I know it’s going to break through because I’ll probably be the only one doing it.
‘Once it’s successful, all the other artists will actually hopefully buy it and do the same thing, and then we can change the whole vibe and the script of it.’
Akon’s Beautiful Day is out now.
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