I hope this wasn’t what he was talking about when he said he was turning his entire catalog country.
When I was in college back around 2006-2010, Akon was a BIG player at all the college bars. The rapper, hip hop star and producer burst onto the music scene in 2004 after the release of his “Locked Up,” which featured Styles P. Later, and in 2006, he dropped his second album Konvicted, which was a huge commercial success and nominated for Best Contemporary R&B Album at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards, while its lead singles, “I Wanna Love You” featuring Snoop Dogg and “Smack That” featuring Eminem both received nominations for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration.
Back in the late 2000s, you couldn’t go to the bars in a college town without hearing songs like “Right Now (Na Na Na)” or “I’m So Paid,” and it seems like he was featured on pretty much every song that was released around that time, including massive hits like “Sexy B**ch” from David Guetta, “The Sweet Escape” with Gwen Stefani, “Bartender” by T-Pain…the list just goes on and on. I’m sitting here remembering just how many songs Akon really had back in the day. He was everywhere.
(Also, fun fact I just learned: The Senegalese-American singer’s real name is Aliaune Damala Bouga Time Puru Nacka Lu Lu Lu Badara Akon Thiam. I wonder why he didn’t go by his full name when he got into the music business).
But anyway, after all that massive success, Akon hasn’t really had any big commercial hits lately, with his last appearance on the American charts coming back in 2013 with his feature on David Guetta’s single “Play Hard” alongside Ne-Yo.
It sounds like he’s got something new up his sleeve though, because recently Akon told TMZ that he was planning on redoing his entire catalog – and making it country:
“I’m actually redoing my whole catalog in country. The whole catalog, I’m not even joking. We’ve already started. It’s been an idea for years, like, forever. Starting next month you’re gonna start seeing all the releases.”
I mean, I was intrigued, because Akon had some bangers back in the day…but most of them were about banging strippers or picking up some girl in the club, so I’m not sure how well those will play as country songs.
But if this first teaser is what we can expect from the rest of the project…well, it’s hard to really call this country.
Josh Ross, an up-and-coming country singer whose music is along the lines of guys like Bailey Zimmerman and Nate Smith, just teased his new song, a remix of Akon’s “Right Now (Na Na Na)” called “Drunk Right Now (Na Na Na).” And it features Akon himself:
@joshrossmusic Feeling a lil Kon-try @AKON 🤠 #newmusic #countrymusic #musicoftiktok
I mean, it sounds exactly the same as the original, you just changed “I wanna make up” to “I wanna get drunk.” Is that considered making something “country” these days? Is the bar REALLY that low for something to be considered country?
And hey, I’m not going to say the song isn’t catchy, because the original was catchy and this one’s pretty much the same song. But is this what I was hoping for when Akon said he was making his catalog “country?” Not at all.
