Akon On His New Music, OG Boo Dirty, & Going Out With Michael Jackson In Disguise [Exclusive Video]

Akon, the R&B great, will finally be dropping some new music this year.

Akon Exclusive Video Interview

By the end of 2016, Akon will have dropped his four-part Stadium album, which has been in the works for years. The record will be dropping on the singer’s Stadium app following negotiations with Atlantic Records.

CHECK OUT AKON’s uBIO: HIS OWN STORY IN HIS OWN WORDS

“I was gonna do it independently, and then when I went out and kinda exposed the concept of what I was gonna do I got all these major offers and Atlantic came with a great situation that I felt could work on a joint venture side of things,” Akon told uInterview in an exclusive interview. “I decided to wait a little bit, close that deal and then come out with the app. So, now I’m just gonna have the proper support behind it that it needed. I’m glad they were able to see the vision of where I was going.”

While getting his app up and running is something of a career milestone for Akon, not much could compare to checking off the ultimate item on his bucket list  – working with Michael Jackson.

“When that happened I felt like I had accomplished everything I wanted to accomplish in music,” Akon said. “The experience was amazing because he was the kind of person that I would never have expect to be the kind of person I expected to be. He was extremely funny, like stupid funny. We could never keep a straight face in the studio, but then he was like a master of disguises. We would go out in public places together and he would be next to me and you would not even know that was him. Wigs, mustaches, costumes, whatever the case.”

These days, Akon is now taking other artists under his wing, including the Memphis rapper O.G. Boo Dirty, who was brought to his attention by a mutual friend. Tiring of the themes perpetuated in the majority of modern rap songs, Akon was looking for someone doing what he calls “reality rap.” After hearing O.G. Boo Dirty’s track “Problems,” he knew he had his guy.

“I was surrounded by a whole bunch of demo tapes and artists that I was particularly working with at the time and just kind of struggling to get real music out there because lately music just hasn’t been saying too much you know?” Akon explained. “Especially with rap, it’s been just kinda a lot of jibber-jabber. But with his records, like his lyrical content, actually had some kind of meaning to it.”

OG Boo Dirty On What Inspires His Music, Working With Akon

It’s hard to listen to “Problems’ without seeing the political implications of the lyrics, but Akon isn’t keen on dwelling on politics in music – or on the current social activist movements that are stirring in the African-American community.

“I think the biggest misconnection in the United States is lack of education, and I think on the African-American side they’re so fearful of understanding their history, doing more research and wanting to explore more about Africa and the travels and the voyages and how they got here, and the aspect of their way of life and how it was actually framed up until the point of now getting the freedom and having readjust to free life,” Akon mused. “I think we’re still coming across a lot of that pain from the past, and majority of African Americans just don’t let the history, the negative part of the history go. I think the best way to move forward is dealing with the future and how you could move forward without bringing the negative history with you.”

Get Akon’s Freedom Here!