Akon

Akon has always kept his family far away from the eyes of media. However, he claims to have six children with three different women .He runs an organization named Konfidence for underprivileged children and also owns a diamond mine in South Africa.

His name has been in number of controversies and has also faced numerous legal difficulties. He is believed to have served three years in prison from 1999 to 2002 for car-theft ring.

In 2007, during a concert Akon threw a 15 year old boy off the stage for which he faced criminal charges. During the same year in April 2007, he faced huge criticism for his inappropriate sexual behaviour with a teenage girl at a club in Trinidad and Tobago.

Akon was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on April 16, 1973, to an African family. His father, Mor Thaim, was a traditional jazz musician and mother, Kine Thaim, was a dancer.

His parents moved to their hometown Dakar, Senegal, West Africa soon after Akon was born and lived there for 7 years. The couple along with their family moved back to the United and settled in the Jersey City.

As he reached the teenage and attended high school, his parents left him with his elder brother in Jersey City and moved to Atlanta, Georgia with the rest of the family.

Akon was a naughty and mischievous teen who did everything against the school rules. He did not get along with the other children easily and eventually started to hang around with the local rowdies.

Thanks to the musical influence of his family, Akon developed a great passion and love in music from an early age .He learned to play five musical instruments during his childhood including guitar, drums and djembe.

With the release of his debut album, ‘Trouble’, in June 2004, by Universal's imprint SRC Records ,Akon’ s life turned around and he instantly got international stardom. The album was a huge success and produced multiple hit singles like “Locked Up", "Bananza (Belly Dance)," “Ghetto” and "Lonely."

After the success of his first album, he started his own labels, named Kon Live Distribution and Konvict Muzic. He released his second album, ‘Konvicted’, in November 2006 from his own label.

‘Konvicted’ gave him even more success by giving several chart buster singles. The album broke several records by winning multiple platinum certificates. The album featured guest appearances by the famous artists in two singles; Eminem was featured in the single "Smack That" and Snoop Dogg in "I Wanna Love You”.

His third album, ‘Freedom’, came out in 2008. The album spawned four singles: "Right Now -Na Na Na", "I'm So Paid", "Beautiful" and "We Don't Care". The album was certified platinum in the United States.

Akon has collaborated with the famous music artists like Whitney Houston, Lionel Richie and Gwen Stefan .He co-wrote Lady Gaga’s famous song “Just Dance”.

‘Trouble’ the solo debut album of Akon, spawning five singles released on June 29, 2004 became a huge hit. In April, 2005 , the album topped the charts in UK . The song “Locked Up" from the album got 8th and 5th position in the U.S. and UK respectively. “Lonely” got the 5th spot on the Billboard Hot 100, and became number one in Australia, Germany and the UK.

His second album, Konvicted , released in November 2006 climbed number two on the Billboard 200 on four different occasions ,selling 286,000 copies in the first week only. For 28 consecutive weeks, the album stayed in the top twenty list.

The third album, ‘Freedom’, released on December 2, 2008 ,spawning four singles was certified platinum in US after selling millions of copies all over the world.

He was also co-writer of Lady Gaga's hit number "Just Dance". The song was a huge success commercially and earned her Grammy nomination for Best Dance Recording at the 51st Grammy Awards.

The song "Sexy Bitch", sung by David Guetta and Akon together, topped in more than 6 countries, and climbed at number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100.