BEVERLY HILLS, September 02, (THEWILL) – Senegalese-American rapper and songwriter, Akon has set his sights on building a sprawling $6 billion city in his Senegal homeland to welcome Africans of the Diaspora back home.
The R&B star said he had laid the first stone for the city in the Atlantic Ocean village of Mbodiene around 100 kilometres South of Dakar.
“Growing up in New Jersey, where my family moved when I was seven, I ran into a lot of African-Americans that didn’t really understand their culture,” the 47-year-old rapper said.
“So I wanted to build a city or a project like this that will give them the motivation to know that there is a home back home,” he said, adding that he had received the blessing and advice of Mbodiene’s elders.
Akon City will offer hotels, a university, hospitals, business and leisure centres including a casino, as well as movie studios, all featuring futuristic designs by architect Hussein Bakri, with African sculptures for inspiration. Wakanda, the fictional African city of the “Black Panther” comic book series, served as additional inspiration, Akon acknowledged.
“The city would also include a “village of African cultures. As you come in from America, or Europe or anywhere in the Diaspora, and you feel like you want to visit Africa, we want Senegal to be your first stop,” said Akon, whose real name is Alioune Badara Thiam.
The musician and green entrepreneur who set up Akon Lighting Africa to boost solar power on the continent said the new city would be built using renewable materials of African origin.
He said the project would cost an overall $6 billion but would not name the principal investors because of confidentiality clauses.
