A rendering of the forthcoming Akon City in Senegal. Photograph: Hussein Bakri/BAD Consultant/Semer Group.has set his sights on building a sprawling $6 billion city in his Senegal homeland to welcome Africans of the diaspora to their “home back home”.
As he was growing up in the US state of New Jersey, where his family moved when he was seven, Akon “ran into a lot of African-Americans that didn’t really understand their culture,” the 47-year-old said. Wakanda, the fictional African city of the “Black Panther” comic book series, served as additional inspiration, Akon acknowledged, in answer to a question.
“As you come in from America, or Europe or anywhere in the diaspora, and you feel like you want to visit Africa, we want Senegal to be your first stop,”The musician and green entrepreneur who set up Akon Lighting Africa to boost solar power on the continent said the new city would be built using renewable materials of African origin to the extent possible.