A ‘real-life Wakanda’: US singer Akon’s US$6 billion ‘Akon City’ in Senegal will even have its own cryptocurrency
- Construction begins in early 2021 for ‘Akon City’, a futuristic urban centre in Senegal that will use a cryptocurrency called AKoin
- It will include recording studios and even a zone dubbed ‘Senewood’ that developers hope will help develop Senegal’s film industry
American R&B singer Akon is moving ahead with plans to create a futuristic Pan-African city, announcing this week that construction will begin next year on the US$6 billion project despite global tourism’s uncertain future.
Akon, who first announced his idea for the utopian city back in 2018, has described it as a “real-life Wakanda”, comparing it to the technologically advanced fictional African place portrayed in the blockbuster film Black Panther (2018).
Akon said he hoped his project would provide much-needed jobs for Senegalese people and also serve as a “home back home” for black Americans and others facing racial injustices.
“The system back home treats them unfairly in so many different ways that you can never imagine. And they only go through it because they feel that there is no other way,” he said. “So if you’re coming from America or Europe or elsewhere in the diaspora and you feel that you want to visit Africa, we want Senegal to be your first stop.”
Akon, who was born in the United States to Senegalese parents, spent much of his childhood in the West African country, where only 44 per cent of rural households had electricity even in 2018.
