Akon has finalized a deal to build his own futuristic city in Senegal.
The American singer, who spent part of his childhood in the west African nation, has been looking for a site to build his own settlement since 2018, but sealed an agreement to build his city with Senegalese officials on Monday (January 13, 2020).
Announcing the deal on Twitter, he posted a picture of a signing ceremony, and wrote: “Just finalized the agreement for AKON CITY in Senegal. Looking forward to hosting you there in the future.”
Akon City, which he is creating in partnership with Senegal’s state-owned SAPCO tourism company, will be a “crypto-city” built on 2,000 acres of land, in which residents will use his cryptocurrency, AKoin.
The new conurbation is a five-minute drive outside the Senegalese capital, Dakar, and is billed as a global eco-tourism destination. lt will run entirely on renewable energy generated by the Locked Up hitmaker’s solar-power project, Akon Lighting Africa.
Before the ceremony, Senegalese officials praised the singer’s commitment to the environment and investing in Africa, saying: “Beyond his status as an artist, it is Akon, the investor who believes in Africa.”
The musician first revealed his grand plans to Newsweek back in 2018, explaining that he hoped the new city would be the first of many.
“With the AKoin we are building cities, the first one being in Senegal,” the 46-year-old, real name Aliaune Thiam, promised. “We’re securing the land and closing out all the legislation papers for the city. We want to make it a free zone, and cryptocurrency-driven as a test market.
“If it works, we will scale it out to all the other countries in Africa so all the cities are connected. It’s going to be a 50-to-100-year project, most likely. I probably won’t even live to see it finished. But for the project in Senegal, we have a 10-year deadline for that city to be built out.”
