Born Aliaune Thiam to legendary percussionist and jazz musician Mor Thiam in St. Louis, Missouri. Akon, initially moved to Dakar Senegal soon after his birth but when he was 7 moved back to New Jersey. However Akon failed to settle down had numerous run-ins with the school system and the law. He eventually got sent to jail on one occasion for three years on car theft charges.

It was while he was in prison that Akon honed with musical skills to create a fusion of hip-hop, a genre he previously rejected much earlier in life, with West African styled vocals. Following his release from jail, Akon got to work on his musical ideas in a home studio, writing and recording tracks.

It was not very long before the tapes fell into the hands of SRC/Universal, who snapped him up and released his debut album in 2004, poignantly titled “Trouble”, a reflection of his more recent past. The album was a success, going multi-platinum with hit singles like “Locked Up”, which was written while serving time for grand theft auto, “Lonely”, “Bananza (Belly Dancer)”, “Pot of Gold” and “Ghetto”.

Following the success of his album, Akon has gone to work with other artists, most notably featuring the in single “Soul Survivor” by rapper Young Jezzy. He has also produced for the likes of T-Pain, India Arie, Obie Trice, more notably has recently been in the studio Elton John and Gwen Staffani and is working on upcoming material for Young Buck of the G-Unit.

A keen businessman, Akon held talks with Interscope Records to form his own record label, Konlive. The new label would feature new and upcoming talent, alongside the more established talent of Chilli from the super girl group, TLC. Apart from his music Akon in the process of developing his own clothing line and a movie feature would be about his own life and would be titled "Money, Power, Respect: A Hustler's Dream", with a relase date sometime in 2007.

More recently Akon made history in the american Billboard’s Hot 100 chart when his new single featuring Eninem called “Smack That” became the fastest mover in the 48 year old history of the charts, climbing 88 spots from No 95 to No 7, beating the the 82 spot move by Vanessa Hudgens, Zac Efron, and Andrew Seeley's "Breaking Free" in February. The single is taken from his sophmore album title “Konvicted” and is due for release in November 2006.