"Akon City" The Futuristic "Wakanda" Senegalese Utopia Envisioned By Singer Akon… Was Just Officially Abandoned

Akon is many things. He's a 5x-Grammy-nominated singer, songwriter, and producer. He discovered and signed Lady Gaga when she was a freelance studio backup singer. When ringtones were a thing back in 2007 or so, he sold more than any other artist on earth. He's a businessman and philanthropist. Often blending the two into very ambitious combined visions.

And, to his credit, Akon is not all talk and hype. He takes swings. Really, really, really big swings.

But, unfortunately, sometimes really, really, really big swings turn into really, really, really big misses…

On January 13, 2020, Akon revealed that he had gotten the government of Senegal to agree to set aside 136 acres of land for an extremely ambitious real estate development project he would spearhead. The 136 acres are located just off the country's west coast, 80 miles south of the capital, Dakar. On this neglected land, Akon wasn't planning to build a couple of apartment buildings. He wanted to build a futuristic metropolis inspired by Black Panther's Wakanda. The name of this future African utopia?

Akon City

Akon City would be unlike any metropolis on earth. Akon envisioned a self-sustaining, solar-powered city complete with gravity-defying skyscrapers, luxury apartments, hospitals, and schools. And the whole city would exclusively operate on its own custom cryptocurrency called Akoin.

With a staggering $6 billion price tag, the city was designed to offer jobs, education, and technological innovation to the region, making it a beacon of opportunity for the local community.

Akon City's construction completion date was equally ambitious. The timeline predicted that all construction would be complete by LATE 2023. Here are two artist renderings of how Akon City was supposed to look by late 2023:

Pretty amazing! I would definitely visit!

So let's fast forward to the present. We're about a year and a half beyond the estimated total completion date. That should be plenty to account for inevitable delays. How's Akon City coming along???

Well, I'm happy to announce that after five years, Akon City has completed construction… on… a welcome center. Well. Part of a welcome center, to be fair.

✊🏿 🏙️ Cidade africana inspirada em "Wakanda", de Pantera Negra, é oficialmente DESCARTADA.

⛔️ A primeira fase da "Akon City", no Senegal, orçada em US$ 6 bilhões, estava prevista para 2026 — mas até agora, apenas um único edifício foi construído.pic.twitter.com/hAleUFe68x

— République (@republiqueBRA) July 10, 2025

That's right—five years after the grand unveiling, the monumental Akon City project has managed to erect a partial structure of what was supposed to be the city's grand entrance. No futuristic skyscrapers, no solar-powered infrastructure, no Akoin-powered economy—just a lonely foundation stone and a few walls, surrounded by an empty field where goats and cows graze in the Senegalese sun.

So what happened?

First off, COVID caused a serious delay in construction, financial, labor, and material planning. But even beyond COVID, Akon City was plagued by financing challenges, local land disputes, and shifting political priorities.

In August 2024, the government sent Akon a formal warning, after several previous notices, that he had to make some progress FAST or the plug would be pulled.

This week, the government pulled the plug. The Senegalese tourism authority has taken back but 20 of the 136 acres it had allotted to Akon. The Senegalese government now hopes to raise around $1.2 billion from private investors to build a tourist resort, hospital, and university. Akon apparently still hopes to contribute something connected to the new vision on his remaining acres.

To be clear: I don't believe $6 billion was spent to get to this point, and I haven't seen any reports accusing Akon of fraud or anything shadty. But I also don't know how much money was raised, where it went, or if there was an official accounting of what went wrong with the finances. Also, for what it's worth, it doesn't sound like there is any bad blood between Akon and the Senegalese. With the recent announcement, a government official stated:

"What Akon's preparing with us is a realistic project, [we] will fully support… May this resort serve as a model for success in Senegal, a hub for tourism and a source of economic opportunity."

I know what you're thinking..

What happened to Akoin??!!

Akoin debuted in November 2020 at a price of roughly $0.15. The value peaked a few months later in February of 2021 at $0.50 per Akoin. Today, a single Akoin would set you back $0.003 USD. So ya, that's a 99.4% drop from the peak.