Akon |
Mon. May 02.2005 12:00 AM EDT |
Akon: Trouble No MoreNewark kid from Senegal leaves the thug life, leaps up the charts. He talks Fugee roots, superstar psychology, and life behind bars. by C. Bottomley |
It's been a long road to "Lonely." Aliaune Akon Thiam grew up in Dakar, Senegal, where his father was renowned as a master percussionist who buddied up with James Brown and Michael Jackson. After moving to the U.S., Akon chose crime over music --
VH1: Your father Mor Thiam was a famed percussionist. Was there always a lot of music in the house? Akon: Yeah. Every artist out there right now was real good friends with my dad. My dad was all over the place. I met James Brown, The Jackson 5; I met a lot of celebrities. VH1: What was Michael Jackson like? Akon: I met him right before Thriller came out. He wasn't so unapproachable then. The Jackson family always treated us like we were their sons. My mom did their wardrobe. She used to sew their clothes. She did some African outfits, some regular outfits. It wasn't a job; she just did it for a hobby. VH1: You actually grew up in Senegal? Akon: I grew up there but I was born in St. Louis. My mom and pop made sure we were all born in the States, that way we wouldn't have any immigration problems. We came here to go to school. Then in the summer we would go back to Senegal. Eventually, after high school, I ended up staying. VH1: Dakar is a very musical city. Is there a difference between how the music stars there and the music stars in America carry themselves? Akon: In Dakar, a superstar is a regular person. They don't have big limos and a lot of security. They do music for the people. The music has substance and a message and helps the society out there. So they receive the people as much as the people receive them. Here, the artists are so unapproachable you can't even walk up to them and say, "Hi." Security will push you to the side. There's no relationship. VH1: How do you keep your own feet on the ground? Akon: Me, I don't really care. There could be 100,000 people out there and I would go right to the crowd like, "What up?!" The fans love me, that's why they support me. They ain't there to bring me no harm. But if you act that way, the energy can easily switch. They can become very hostile and at that point you will really need security. VH1: You sang on The Fugees' The Score. How did you hook up with them? Akon: They introduced me to the music industry. I used to work at a barber shop in Newark and Clef used to come get his hair cut. At the time he didn't have a deal. We used to go in my basement outside of Newark and just create music. I was one of the original members of the Refugee Camp. I got a basketball scholarship to go to Atlanta and then I ended up leaving. VH1: How did Wyclef like to get his hair cut? Akon: He used to have a low cut like mine and a fade and sideburns to match the beard. He looked like a Muslim. Later he grew the dreads. Then by the time I got locked up they had sold like 25 million records. VH1: You seem like an upbeat guy whose parents took an interest in your life. How did you get locked up? Akon: Honestly, I'm a whole other person now. When I first came to the States, I used to get picked on because I was from Africa. I had nappy hair and my clothes were cultural. So people reacted to me in an ignorant way because they didn't know my culture. My whole thing was, if you're going to be ignorant to me I'm going to be ignorant to you. It got to the point where I was fighting every day at school. VH1: Did you end up falling in with a bad crowd? Akon: I got accepted by the gangster crowd because they saw that I wasn't afraid of nobody and I would fight anybody. I was always a smart kid so I always found a way to make more money. If you gave me a little respect, I could take that little and create a lot more. Before I knew it, I became the most popular kid in Jersey City as a good bad guy. VH1: So like any smart criminal, what was the stupid thing you did that you ended up getting caught for? Akon: I was actually charged for being the ringleader in a car theft operation, like Gone in 60 Seconds. I had multi chop-shops around the country and I was distributing luxury cars to celebrities and drug dealers. VH1: Really? Akon: Well, I was acquitted of all charges, so it wasn't true! [Laughs] VH1: How did you assert your credentials on the first day of prison? Akon: It's like territorial battles. When you come in, all the territories are already taken. I couldn't sit over here, I couldn't use this phone, I can't hang out with this group. What do you do? It was easy, though, because that's how it was for me my whole life. I would go use the phone and they would say I only had 5 minutes on it. I would stay on 10 minutes just to let them know I could use it how I wanted to. VH1: I'm guessing people didn't take that lightly. Akon: At that point I fought almost every day for two years. I was a champion by then. I don't care how big or small you were --I knew where to hit you to knock you out, so I didn't fear anybody. I took out one dude in prison and from that point on it was "Yo dude, where ya from, what's your name? VH1: What's jail like? Akon: It's so crazy because in the beginning you feel like your life is over. But once you're in there for six months, it feels like home. When I became comfortable that's when I got scared. That's what made me say, "This is time for me to change. I want to do something with my life." VH1: Did you begin writing lyrics in prison? Akon: No, it was a hobby I used to do it all the time. If something crazy happened in my life then I would write about it in diary form. No one even knew I was musical because I was around a bunch of thugs. Doing music, especially R&B;, wasn't cool. They looked at that like it was real soft. So I hid it and listened to it on my own time. That habit followed me in prison. If something happened there I would write about it. That's how the song "Locked Up" on Trouble came along. That was my way to vent. VH1: What's Dakar like now? Akon: Dakar is so much bigger now. Hip-hop is so big there now. The kids don't even act African. They all think they're American. I used to send my music to Africa and the radio stations would play it. The radio stations played my whole album everyday before the States had it. Now I'm so big down there I can't even get home from the airport. I had to have the military escort me to the house! |
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