{"id":154550,"date":"2025-07-09T19:01:39","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T19:01:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/a-rapper-aimed-to-create-a-futuristic-city-in-senegal-inspired-by-wakanda-with-a-budget-of-6-billion\/"},"modified":"2025-07-09T19:01:41","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T19:01:41","slug":"a-rapper-aimed-to-create-a-futuristic-city-in-senegal-inspired-by-wakanda-with-a-budget-of-6-billion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/a-rapper-aimed-to-create-a-futuristic-city-in-senegal-inspired-by-wakanda-with-a-budget-of-6-billion\/","title":{"rendered":"A rapper aimed to create a futuristic city in Senegal, inspired by Wakanda, with a budget of $6 billion."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The American rapper Alioune Badara Thiam, better known as \u00a0Akon\u00a0, announced in 2020 his goal of building a \u00a0$6 billion megacity\u00a0 in Senegal. This city, inspired by \u00a0Wakanda\u00a0, the fictional Central African country created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, was intended to be the home of the superhero Black Panther.<\/p>\n

The proposal promised to alter the urban and economic landscape of Senegal, aiming to attract investments and tourism. However, similar to other ambitious projects, “Akon City” faced a reduction in its estimated investment from \u00a0$6 billion\u00a0 to just a fraction of that amount, ultimately resulting in a couple of buildings in a remote rural area southeast of the capital, Dakar.<\/p>\n

Akon City: Wakanda in Real Life<\/h2>\n

Akon gained fame as a successful rapper during the early 2000s. Although most of his life was spent in the United States, he originates from Senegal. This connection fueled his dream of bringing an innovative project to his home country.<\/p>\n

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The artist envisioned a \u00a0futuristic megacity\u00a0 modeled after \u00a0Wakanda\u00a0 as represented in Marvel’s comics and movies. The project was officially named Akon City<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Despite the risk of the proposal becoming merely an artistic eccentricity, Akon garnered institutional support from the Senegalese government. Minister of Tourism \u00a0Alioune Sarr\u00a0 advocated for the project, stating, \u201cFor all those coming from America, Europe, or anywhere wanting to visit Africa, we want Senegal to be their first stop,\u201d during the project announcement.<\/p>\n

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Akon expressed his desire for the city’s buildings to resemble \u00a0authentic African sculptures\u00a0 found in traditional villages, as noted by the Washington Post<\/em>. This vision included \u00a0unique skyscrapers\u00a0 with sinuous designs that would set the city apart.<\/p>\n

According to the project\u2019s website, Akon City was set to have distinct thematic zones\u2014\u00a0educational, healthcare, technological\u00a0, and \u00a0entertainment\u00a0\u2014featuring hospitals, sports stadiums, film studios, research labs, and universities.<\/p>\n

How Will It Be Funded?<\/h2>\n

Funding for the project was planned to come from a combination of state and private investments, as well as a \u00a0cryptocurrency\u00a0 called \u00a0Akoin\u00a0 that was intended to be created to support the city\u2019s development.<\/p>\n

In the beginning, the Senegalese government provided \u00a0800 hectares of coastal land\u00a0 for the urban project in Mbodi\u00e8ne, a village situated about \u00a0100 kilometers southeast of Dakar\u00a0.<\/p>\n

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\n Akon City Entertainment District<\/span>\n <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

However, much like other mega-projects with far larger budgets, Akon soon recognized that \u00a0$6 billion\u00a0 was an immense sum to amass. By 2024, the investment expectations were adjusted to a more feasible \u00a0$1 billion\u00a0 plan.<\/p>\n

The Akoin cryptocurrency began trading on the \u00a0Bitget exchange platform\u00a0 at \u00a0$0.15\u00a0 on November 19, 2020, but plummeted to \u00a0$0.003\u00a0 by December 11, revealing a lack of widespread support for the project.<\/p>\n

As reported by Bloomberg<\/em>, the present state of the project has shown that there are no roads, homes, or electrical grids on the promised land. So far, the only constructions funded by Akon include a youth center and a basketball court. There remains \u00a0no trace of the futuristic buildings\u00a0 envisioned for Akon City.<\/p>\n

The Future of the Land<\/h2>\n

The project\u2019s fate was encapsulated by \u00a0Serigne Mamadou Mboup\u00a0, director of the Senegal Tourism Development Agency, who stated to the BBC<\/em> that “The Akon City project no longer exists. Fortunately, an agreement has been reached between Sapco and the businessman Alioune Badara Thiam. What is now being prepared with us is a realistic project, which Sapco will fully support.” Akon himself acknowledged that he took on all responsibility for the mismanagement of the project.<\/p>\n

While Senegal has regained 90% of the land initially allocated for Akon City, plans will continue with Akon to develop sports and civil facilities for the \u00a02026 Youth Olympic Games\u00a0 in Dakar. However, the long-anticipated vision of a Senegalese Wakanda remains shelved for the time being.<\/p>\n


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General News – 2<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The American rapper Alioune Badara Thiam, better known as \u00a0Akon\u00a0, announced in 2020 his goal of building a \u00a0$6 billion megacity\u00a0 in Senegal. This city, inspired by \u00a0Wakanda\u00a0, the fictional Central African country created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, was intended to be the home of the superhero Black Panther. The proposal promised to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":154551,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36399],"tags":[6500,377,2119,364,1861,38193,2313,6339,8073,38524],"class_list":["post-154550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-aimed","tag-billion","tag-budget","tag-city","tag-create","tag-futuristic","tag-inspired","tag-rapper","tag-senegal","tag-wakanda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}