In a jaw-dropping moment on The Bootleg Kev Podcast, music superstar Akon spilled some serious family tea — revealing that his own brothers used to impersonate him on stage… and it actually worked.
According to Akon, back in the early 2000s when demand for him was sky-high, he was getting booked left and right. The solution? He sent his brother Abou “Bu” Thiam — who looks so much like him it’s scary — to perform in his place. “He would go do the shows, lip-sync to my tracks, and nobody could tell the difference,” Akon said, laughing.
But it gets even wilder.
Akon says his other brother, Omar, took it further — booking his own fake Akon shows, cashing in on the star’s fame without Akon even knowing. “He was going city to city, collecting bags… like it was a hustle,” Akon revealed. “It was gangsta.”
Despite the deception, Akon says it’s all love now — and they laugh about it today. Especially since Bu went on to become a major music exec, managing artists like Kanye and Rihanna.
Moral of the story? If you thought you saw Akon live in 2005… maybe you didn’t.
