Akon has an idea about what would make Africa a stronger country — Black Americans need to move back home.
He made the declaration in a recent interview with REVOLT's Deposit$ podcast. He says that Africa is rich in resources, it just needs folks to consider it as a viable option to make a life.
“My goal is to get everybody to move back to Africa," Akon, whose father is from Senegal, said. "That’s my goal. I wanna get as many African-Americans back home to Africa as I possibly can, because I know the day they move back, everything they fighting for in America – they will not have to fight for over there. All the struggle that they struggled [in America] … they gon’ come there with this mindset, with this mentality, with the finances that they built, the equity in life and bring it back and invest that in Africa?”
Akon spent part of his early childhood in Senegal and said that Africa could be the strongest nation in the world and wondered why more Black Americans don't seriously consider moving back. “Man, Africa could be the strongest nation in the world if y’all went back home," he contended. "Because we got everything that it takes to be that. We got the resources, we got the land, we got the population. And together we got the strength and we got the know-how. Like why we ain’t doing that?”
He went on to imagine a scenario where all the Black entertainers moved to Africa and started labels and companies there, or if Black sports players moved and played on teams there. "We would own the team! Just imagine..."
Akon is currently building Akoncity in Senegal which he compares to the fictional Wakanda. "I wanted to build a city or a project like this that would give them (African Americans) the motivation to know that there is a home back home... The system back home (in the US) treats them unfairly in so many different ways that you can never imagine and they only go through it because they feel like there is no other way," he explained in a 2020 interview.
Watch the interview from a few months ago that recently went viral below.
