Aliaune Damala Badara Akon Thiam, known mononymously as Akon, has confessed that in the past, his brother Abou ‘Bu’ Thiam used to perform as him when he could not meet up with multiple schedules.
The Senegalese-American singer, record producer, and entrepreneur who plans to build Akon City in Uganda says he would use his brother on stage when double booked.
The 49-year-old musician made this shocking confession as a guest on ‘The Morning Hustle’ when asked about the rumours regarding the same.
“Let me clear some things up so we all know,” he explained. “Bu was my double. He was my double. This was before [the] internet. If you saw Abou in one place and you saw me, you couldn’t tell the difference.”
The “Don’t Matter” hitmaker went on to explain how his brother began as his hype man, then he grew into serving other roles for him.
As Akon’s fanbase and platform grew, the requests for shows and appearances fell like manna from heaven. And so, to navigate this avalanche of interest, Akon and Bu decided to come up with a plan.
“I was like, ‘Man, all this money I’m leaving on the table,’” he continued. “We cannot leave all this money on the table.”
However, when Akon was asked if his brother could sing, Akon replied: “No. He can’t sing. He can’t do none of that.”
Akon then said his other brother, Omar, would also claim his identity, however without the singer or Bu’s permission.
“Omar would be in another country, another city, getting money and I’d be like, ‘What? They booked me already,” Akon laughingly said.
Although this latest admission by Akon is sure to be controversial with his fans, Akon is never far from controversy.
According to his Wikipedia page, Akon owns a diamond mine in South Africa and once denied the existence of Blood Diamonds (also known as “conflict diamonds”) saying, “I don’t believe in conflict diamonds. That’s just a movie. Think about it. Nobody thought or cared about conflict diamonds until Blood Diamond was released.”
However, he has since changed tack and accepted that blood diamonds do indeed exist.