Friday, April 18, 2008
Daily Douchebag: Akon
Name: Aliuane Badara Thiam
DOB: April 30, 1973
Occupation: R&B singer, record producer, big old phony
Hometown: Dakar, Senegal
Current residence: Atlanta, Georgia
Douchebaggery: I never spent much time thinking about whether Akon's claims of being imprisoned for various crimes ranging from operating a car theft ring to illegal weapons possession to drug dealing were true. Akon has a nice voice and he sounds sweet when he sings "I wanna fuck you." I also figure that with a few exceptions, most of the dudes in R&B and hip-hop are embellishing a little when it comes to their criminal resumés. For example, when I hear R. Kelly singing the hook for Young Jeezy's "Go Getta," I don't believe for a second that Kells is"trapping all day." Robert Sylvester Kelly may be a R&B thug, but he's not taking a break from blessing the world with his mackadelic nightspot realness to sling crack on the street corner. And I believe Lil' Wayne a lot more when he says things like "hoes kiss the dick with no mistletoes" over "I put 'em in ya head and watch the holes bleed." In spite of his claims to the contrary, I don't think anyone actually believes that his tattooed teardrops represent three different lives that he's personally taken via homicidal means. The only crimes he's committed are the ones he's routinely arrested for: rolling around with pounds of weed (literally), smoking the same in public, and enough Vicodin to supply every prescription pill-popper on "Intervention" for life.
Akon, however, has apparently been doing a lot of talking about how critical his past record of illustrious criminal exploits have directly influenced his music. He even named his record label "Konvict" to demonstrate how critical his felonious history is to his art. A recent investigation by The Smoking Gun, however, raises some issues about Akon's personal credibility. As the author of the piece notes regarding his most recent album Konvicted, "Kontrived may have been a more accurate choice."
It seems Akon has made all sorts of claims in interviews, from being the "ringleader of a notorious car theft operation" specializing in exotic luxury vehicles to being a "champion" of prison fighting while doing a three-year sentence to "facing 75 years." With the exception of a solitary reporter at the Washington Post, the media largely accepted Akon's criminal autobiography as fact until The Smoking Gun did some fact-checking and declared Akon "James Frey with catchy hooks and an American Music Award."
In reality, Akon has only one felony conviction to his name (for gun possession), and apart from several months spent in the DeKalb jail for a stolen car charge he ended up getting three years probation for, he hasn't done any time. In fact, he conceived his son in the middle of his supposed term.
Akon has gone above and beyond to make himself seem like some kind of don of the urban underworld. Much like Vanilla Ice before him who made claims of being stabbed in the ass during a gang altercation, Akon presumably felt that this would enhance his marketability. He should have paid more attention to what happened to Vanilla Ice. The false claims of being grievously injured during a gang turf war were the nail in that idiot's coffin. Granted, Akon has produced far more in terms of hits than Vanilla Ice, but considering his outlandish fabrication of being a hardened criminal and maximum security prison veteran, I wonder how well his next album, Acquitted, will fare now that he's been outed as a total fake. Now nobody will ever be able to listen to lyrics like "you know my pedigree, street dealer used to move 'phetamines" without a sarcastic eye-roll. Then again, if nobody cares and Acquitted sells well, maybe I should think about marketing myself this way.
Here's my real autobiography:
I was born November 17, 1978 in Tacoma, Washington and raised in nearby Puyallup, in a house down the street from a trailer park and a mobile home dealership. I attended private Catholic school for twelve years. During this time my hobbies included writing, playing classical piano, and editing the school paper and literary magazine. I received a bachelor's degree in biological sciences from Smith College in 2000. I worked for a small biotechnology company in Seattle for three years and drove a '94 Honda Civic. I was then accepted into a Ph.D program at Columbia University, received two masters degrees, and expect to earn my doctorate in late 2008 or early 2009. I love dogs, beer, sex, and football. I have received only one criminal citation in my life (a misdemeanor "possession of drug paraphernalia" charge in South Dakota for having a pipe and half a joint in my car during a cross-country trek that amounted to no arrest and a fine of $250).
Here's my Akon autobiography:
I was born in 1985 in Tacoma and raised in a vile trailer park in Puyallup, where I began selling illegal firearms at a young age to my equally criminal neighbors. My aptitude in science led to a productive career in clandestine methamphetamine production, so I dropped out of school to pursue riches via the only option available: mastery of the drug trade. My shit was known as the purest tweak in all of Pierce County. After dominating the local market for meth and stunting around town in a stolen Mercedes MacLaren purchased at Akon's infamous chop shop, I set my sights higher. I expanded my portfolio of services to include illegal gun trafficking, money laundering, and interstate transportation of large quantities of marijuana. This backfired after an arrest in South Dakota landed me in maximum security federal prison for five years. While in prison, I was the head dyke in charge and quickly took control of the black market cigarette trade via my ability to beat everyone mercilessly. Upon my release, I migrated east to make a national name for myself amongst the heavy-hitting underground crime syndicates. In New York, I managed to use my prowess in the lab to sell black market illegal poliovirus and rhinovirus to terrorist and mercenary groups. I also began peddling illegal pornography, set up a bootlegging operation, and set up a combination pimping and dogfighting business catering to Michael Vick, Pac Man Jones, Tank Johnson, Ray Lewis, and some of the NFL's most notorious criminals. Today, I am considered a super-don and have several major crime families answering to me. I expect that soon I will be the world's most powerful criminal. And don't fuck with me, because I'm always walking around totally strapped.
Yeah, that's believable. I bet I'm about to get a lot more blog traffic now that I've decided to start marketing myself as a hardened felon with a lengthy rap sheet rather than an upwardly mobile science nerd with a Chopin fetish and a lot of letters bestowed by fancy schools that I can put after my name.
Labels: celebrities, crime and punishment, Daily Douchebag, intentional buffoonery, Lil' Wayne, overcompensation, rap, retard rage, ridiculous absurdity, Robert Sylvester Kelly, Young Jeezy
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