Akon used to pretend he was an African prince
The `Lonely` singer split his time between Senegal and the US while growing up and admits he would play on his African roots as a teenager, by claiming to be royalty so as to impress girls.
Of his traditional African styling, Akon said: "When I was 17, I thought I was the flyest thing on the planet. Of course, I still had my African roots so I would wear dashikis that kinda matched my jeans.
"I think I was a young hustler at that time. I told everybody, `I`m a prince!`
"That was my thing in high school. People would say, `Yeah, he a prince; you know he a prince, right?` Like `Yeah, I`m a prince, see?` That was fun!"
His brother Omar added: "People just didn`t know any better so they believed that we were princes from Africa."
Akon said he got the idea from the classic Eddie Murphy movie `Coming to America`, a comedy about a misplaced African prince trying to make his way in the US.
He added to MTV: "I would play off that, because when `Coming to America` came out years ago, it felt like that was the thing to do."
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