Each Music Monday will be formatted as followed: an overview/ my opinion on their said career, followed by the ranking of their top 5 songs. No artist is without flaws, their worst three songs will also be judged and ripped to shreds.
As a reminder, this is not going to be a series where I list no-name songs off an artist’s shitty second album that’ll you’ll hear occasionally in an urban coffee shop. We only grade hits here. I’m not looking for songs that have the best underlying message. I’m not looking for songs that represent the artist’s struggle and triumph over something shitty that happened to them. I don’t care about any of that. We are only ranking the cream of the crop, the pinnacle of an artist’s success. Before you ask, I will not be ranking The Beatles’ songs, as I do not want to tarnish my blog with overrated garbage. If you have a problem with that, or my rankings, and want to make your criticisms known, you can email all of your concerns to VinnieWontCheckThis@gmail.com. Prior versions of this series can be found here.
So with that, let’s get started.
Aliaune Damala Bouga Time Bongo Puru Nacka Lu Lu Lu Badara Akon Thiam (no I am not making this up, this is actually his name) was born on April 16, 1973 in St. Louis, Missouri to Kin and Mor Thiam. While he was born in the states, he moved to Senegal at a young age and spent his childhood there. His parents were very musical and Akon actually knew how to play five instruments by the age of seven. He moved back to the States and was sentenced to a punishment worse than death ended up in Newark, New Jersey for high school. After high school he turned to a life of crime and ran a stolen car ring in Atlanta. He was eventually sentenced to three years of hard time in 1998 and it served as the inspiration to his debut album Trouble which was released in 2004. The album was a success and got him a record deal. The album spawned two top 10 hits including Lonely (Locked Up was the other song), which brought Akon worldwide success. Trouble also gave us the song Belly Dancer which peaked at number 30 on the charts. I never mention singles from the albums on the overview of an artist ( I decided to begin listing the singles and have revised every blog to reflect that) but while Belly Dancer won’t make my top 5, I want it to be recognized. An absolute banger. In 2006 he released his second album, Konvicted which if you’re a mid 90’s kid, this album changed your life. The way we talked about this album in middle school, you’d think it was the greatest artistic masterpiece since Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam (it is). He became the first solo artist to ever hold the number 1 and number 2 spots on the charts at the same time with two songs off this album. Akon dominated the charts. This album produced two number 1 singles (Don’t Matter, I Wanna Love You), two number 2 hits (Smack That, Sweet Escape) and another song that peaked number 7 (Sorry, Blame it On Me). Iconic shit. It was also at this time Akon began to get featured on every song under the song, AND THOSE WERE HITS TOO. He has over 300 features to his name. (If you don’t think I’m putting a bonus ranking of Akon features in this blog, you are mistaken). His third album Freedom was released in 2008, and it was…fine. Just fine, very tough to follow up an album like Konvincted but it produced a top 10 (Right Now), top 20 (Beautiful), and top 30 hit (I’m So Paid). At this point in his career he was mainly pushing his label and working with artists there, namely Lady Gaga and T-Pain. Since then we haven’t gotten anything. I guess he’s been selfishly been doing philanthropy work providing electricity to 15 countries in Africa while depriving us of hits and club bangers. Our light is gone. And I’m not sure when he’s coming back, all we can do is appreciate all the hits he gave us.
Best “(Ft. Akon)” songs:
5. Bartender– T-Pain (ft. Akon)
4. Soul Survivor– Young Jeezy (ft. Akon)
3. I Tried– Bone Thugz n Harmony (ft. Akon)
2. Sweet Escape– Gwen Stefani (ft. Akon)
1. Sweetest Girl– Wyclef Jean (ft. Akon) (and Lil’ Wayne & Niia)
This was tough too, had to omit some good ones too: We Takin’ Over, Who dat Girl, Sexy Bitch, Get Buck in Here (a timeless banger), I Just Had Sex, just to name a few. But when you’re featured on over 300 songs, it’s gonna be tough to name just 5.
Best Akon Songs:
Toughest Omission: Sorry, Blame It On Me– (I’m starting this with my ratings, seems like a good idea). This song was in my top 5 when I originally put the list together but looking at the rest of the top 5, it doesn’t fit. It seems out of place, the top 5 are bangers while this is a ballad. It’s like putting ketchup on a steak.
5. Belly Dancer: Oh yea, that part in the first paragraph how I wasn’t going to include Belly Dancer in my top 5. The more I thought about I couldn’t leave it off. Sure Sorry, Put Blame It On Me or Don’t Matter could EASILY be in this spot and I contemplated both going in this spot. This song is a BANGER and to leave it off would be a disservice to Akon.
4. Right Now (NaNaNa): This song comes in at Number 4 on this list but Number 2 on the “NaNaNa” ranking list, just behind All the Small Things by Blink-182, but above Can’t Hold Us by Macklemore.
3. I Wanna Love You (ft. Snoop Dogg): I really had no business singing this song word for word when I was 12. I still cannot believe musicians used to also make clean versions of albums? Not, “scratch/mute the curse words,” but literally make a second version of the album with clean lyrics. In this case the clean version is better.
2. Beautiful (ft. Colby O’Donnis & Kardinal Official)– This still song slaps to this very day. One of the rare tunes that has a good message with a killer beat. This song doesn’t get talked enough about, sort of ahead of its time with the overall sound. Maybe it’s a little high on this list but if you have a problem with it
1. Smack That (ft. Eminem)– Our number one song is a club banger to this day. This song really kickstarted the two year hot streak Akon went on back in 2006. I can look past how criminally horny Akon was in this song and put it at number one.
I hate sounding redundant but ranking Akon’s top 5 was tough. He’s got so many different sounds and styles of songs. You got ballads, you got love songs, you have rap, and club bangers, Akon is the Swiss Army knife of mid 2000’s music.
Come back Akon. I miss you.
Your Turn
If you had a blog and were to rank every Akon song that hit top 20 on the charts, what are your top 5?
| Title | Year | Peak chart positions | Album |
| Locked Up | 2004 | 8 | Trouble |
| Lonely | 2005 | 4 | Trouble |
| Belly Dancer | 2005 | 20 | Trouble |
| Smack That (ft. Eminem) | 2006 | 2 | Konvicted |
| I Wanna Love You (ft. Snoop Dogg) | 2006 | 1 | Konvicted |
| Don’t Matter | 2007 | 1 | Konvicted |
| Sorry, Blame It On Me | 2007 | 7 | Konvicted |
| Right Now (Na Na Na) | 2008 | 8 | Freedom |
| Beautiful | 2009 | 19 | Freedom |
If you had a blog and were to rank every Akon feature that hit top 20 on the charts, what are your top 5?
| Title | Year | Peak chart positions |
| Soul Survivor (with Young Jeezy) | 2005 | 4 |
| The Sweet Escape (with Gwen Stefani) | 2006 | 2 |
| I Tried (with Bone Thugs-n-Harmony) | 2007 | 6 |
| We Takin’ Over (with Dj Khaled & Co.) | 2007 | 20 |
| Bartender (with T-Pain) | 2007 | 5 |
| Sweetest Girl (with Wyclef Jean, Lil Wayne, and Nila) | 2007 | 12 |
| Hypnotized (with Plies) | 2007 | 14 |
| What You Got (with Colby O’Donis) | 2008 | 14 |
| Dangerous (with Kardinal Offishall) | 2008 | 5 |
| Sexy Bitch (with David Guetta) | 2009 | 5 |
Vin'sane Thoughts 