Akon's plans to ambitious project to build a futuristic city in Senegal have reportedly been abandoned.
In the summer of 2018, the Senegalese-American star (real name Alioune Badara Thiam) announced he was working on building "Akon City," a $6 billion metropolis based on the fictional city of Wakanda in Marvel's Black Panther that would run on his own new cryptocurrency called Akoin.
Akon City was expected to feature gravity-defying skyscrapers and run on solar power from its own solar plant. As well it was set to include a hospital, a shopping mall, an amusement park, a school, a police station, a waste centre, and a seaside resort.
Backed by SAPCO, the nation's tourism development body, the project was given a ten-year building block for it to be completed, but now plans have been abandoned. However, a more "realistic project" is still in the works.
"The Akon City project no longer exists," Serigne Mamadou Mboup, the head of SAPCO told the BBC. "Fortunately, an agreement has been reached between SAPCO and the entrepreneur Alioune Badara Thiam. What he's preparing with us is a realistic project, which SAPCO will fully support."
Last year, Bloomberg reported that construction on Akon City had stalled, and instead of making headway in developing the cutting edge city, it was revealed to be basically just pastures with cows and goats grazing on the 2,000 acres of land.
Along with the lost opportunity is countless lost jobs, with one local resident telling the BBC, "We were promised jobs and development. Instead, nothing has changed."
Akoin, on the other hand, has all but "evaporated," according to sources, despite the cryptocurrency earning Akon "Innovator of the Year" honours back in 2018.
See photos of the imagined Akon City here.