Akon on Why He Didn’t Sign Moneybagg Yo

Akon and Monyebagg Yo have achieved a lot within music, but there was a time years ago when they could have joined forces. The “Locked Up” artist spoke about his reasoning for not signing the dotted line and taking the Memphis rapper under his wing.

In a Vlad TV interview from Saturday (Nov. 5,) the 49-year-old discussed a few of his past signees before revealing when he became aware of the “Wockesha” rapper.

“And mind you OG Boo Dirty was the one that introduced me to Moneybagg [Moneybagg Yo] you know he’s signed to Yo Gotti but we had him first okay but we never signed him,” the Senegalese-American artist said. “Ain’t that crazy, OG came to me and said, ‘Yo Kon he’s the next ni**a,’ like, but at the time I wasn’t focused.”

Moneybagg and Akon eventually linked up for a listening session, which is where the latter started to believe in the former’s trajectory.

“OG came to the house, I mean he brought Moneybagg with him and Moneybagg had a record bro, till this day if he release it I always said that was gonna be his biggest record, it’s called ‘I Need A Plug’ okay I heard that record I went f**kin’ crazy,” he said.

Akon still wasn’t ready to bring out the paperwork and had to go overseas for business. Upon returning six months later, the CMG artist had already begun to blow up to the point the “Don’t Matter” artist didn’t think the relationship would work. “By the time I came back he was already moving on mixtape circuits, but then again I didn’t want to be dealing with rappers.”

In reflection, he doesn’t necessarily wish he did anything differently. “Not saying I regret it, but, OG called it yeah OG Boo dirty caught all that.”

They were correct, as Moneybagg Yo earned his first number-one album on the Billboard 200 Album chart last year with A Gangsta’s Pain.