Akon’s Konvicted turns 20 on Saturday, November 14, and its sales total still stands out: the RIAA has certified the album 6× Platinum, which means 6 million units in the US, making it the Senegalese-American singer’s best-selling record anywhere in the world.
It started fast and kept going. Konvicted opened at No. 2 on the US albums chart with 284,000 copies in its first week, stayed inside the top 20 for 28 straight weeks and ended 2007 as the second-biggest album of the year in America, behind only Daughtry’s debut.
The guest list that built it
Akon produced most of the album himself, recording at White Room Studios in Detroit between April 2005 and June 2006. The guest spots read like a snapshot of 2006 radio:
- “Smack That” with Eminem, who also produced it, was the first single, out on September 26, 2006.
- “I Wanna Love You” with Snoop Dogg followed on October 5.
- “I Can’t Wait” brought in T-Pain, and “Blown Away” featured Styles P.
- “Don’t Matter”, which credits Bob Marley among its writers, became the third single in January 2007.
Three of those singles, “Smack That,” “I Wanna Love You” and “Don’t Matter,” were each later certified 3× Platinum. It also brought Akon three Grammy nominations, split between the contemporary R&B album prize and the rap/sung collaboration field.
The Eminem link runs deep in Detroit lore. We looked back at that city’s biggest rap film in our piece on 8 Mile turning 24 and the first Best Original Song Oscar for hip-hop, and Snoop’s run since then is traced in our story on Snoop Dogg turning 55 with a 22nd album out.
Akon on what he was going for
In a 2022 track-by-track video about the album, Akon explained that he began in music behind the boards, often as a ghost producer for others. “Konvicted was a way of merging all of those sounds in one,” he said, adding that he grew up listening to everything. He also said the lyrics came from his own life experiences.
That mix of R&B, hip-hop and reggae is the album’s calling card. It let one record work in clubs, on pop radio and on rap stations at the same time, which goes a long way toward explaining how the singles kept coming for more than a year after release day.
The numbers, worked out
Put the first week next to the final certification and the shape of the album’s life becomes clear. Its opening 284,000 copies are about 4.7% of the 6 million units the RIAA has since certified, so roughly 95 of every 100 units came after launch week. That is the profile of a slow-burn hit carried by singles, not a front-loaded fan release.
The album’s reach went well past the US. It hit No. 1 in New Zealand, where it was certified 4× Platinum, reached No. 4 in Canada and went 2× Platinum in the UK.
The run did not end with the original twelve tracks. A Platinum Edition in 2007 added “Sorry, Blame It on Me,” the remix track “Rush” with Kardinal Offishall, and a calypso take on “Don’t Matter,” and three more singles followed into 2008. The last of them, “I Can’t Wait” with T-Pain, was released on March 31, 2008.
Further reading
Image: U.S. Embassy Nairobi, CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
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