Senegalese-American singer and songwriter Aliaune Damala Badara Akon Thiam, better known as Akon, has now disclosed why he never signed Ghana’s Sarkodie when he was still in his formative years and bursting with so much potential years ago.
Sarkodie was announced as the first African musician to be signed to Akon’s Konvict Music label, but this was proved to be a falsehood.
Akon stated Sarkodie lacked the mental fortitude to take the world arena by storm at the moment when speaking to Ghana’s Kaly Jay in an interview conducted on Twitter for the first time.
As a result, he was far more focused on executing his job locally, maybe to gain momentum before expanding beyond that scope, which is why he was unable to sign him.
“We had ideas to make him so much bigger,” he says, “but I think his agenda at the time was more focused on Ghana, which worked for him.” And I believe it was a strategy that worked.
“I mean, it’s debatable – but I know for a fact that if he had followed our approach, he would have unquestionably been a global artist.”
“We knew we couldn’t deal with him right now because he wasn’t mentally prepared to go there.” We simply left him to continue moving in the manner in which he was.
“Unfortunately, when you have an artist and you don’t have authority over them or their assets, it’s difficult to do what you need to do with them if you don’t have control over them.”
