In response to a special request from a young man named Demaris, I am going to provide my analysis of the Akon song and video “Locked Up.” However, it is my sincere hope that Demaris will find his own voice soon and begin his own blog to offer his insights about prison culture. The world is waiting to hear from you and can use a dose of your brilliance…

Akon is a multi-platinum rapper who rose to fame on the back of his debut album called “Trouble” and in particular based on his debut single titled “Locked Up.”

In the video, Akon dons an orange jumpsuit and sings about his criminal past. In the intervening years since 2004, it has been revealed that Akon exaggerated his criminal history. In 2008, the Smoking Gun website unearthed documents and published an article titled “Akon’s Con Job.” They dubbed him the “make-believe gangster.”

In the story, Smoking Gun reported:

“Akon’s ad nauseum claims about his criminal career and resulting prison time have been, to an overwhelming extent, exaggerated, embellished, or wholly fabricated…Police, court, and corrections records reveal that the entertainer has created a fictionalized backstory that serves as the narrative anchor for his recorded tales of isolation, violence, woe, and regret. Akon has overdubbed his biography with the kind of grit and menace that he apparently believes music consumers desire from their hip-hop stars.”

The site did confirm that Akon was convicted of one felony – for gun possession – and that case ended in a guilty plea with three years probation. It also revealed that the Grammy Award winner was arrested for stealing a BMW. In that case, he was detained in Atlanta for several months before prosecutors dropped all charges against him. He did not in fact serve any time in prison.

In our recent conversations Demaris, you felt that this information meant that Akon was a fraud and that he had “no right” to sing about prison life. I disagreed with you on one level because I believe that people who haven’t actually lived an experience can still authentically write about that experience.

I do agree with you that Akon has built a great deal of his credibility in the music industry based on the idea of being a “convict.” In fact the title of his second album is “Konvicted.” So I understand your resentment of Akon’s embrace of the identity of “prisoner.” He is profiting from an incarceration experience that is all too real for many people. Those people are in fact “locked up” and are not making music videos about their condition.

I recently read a tweet by Melissa Harris-Lacewell saying that “personal experience is a great place to generate hypotheses but it is a lousy place to test them (8/16/10).” I really agree with her about that. Here’s what that means to me. You cannot simply rely on your lived experience to make sense of the big world out there. You have to also look for ways to empirically test your assumptions. That’s in large part what good researchers do. You need both personal experience and social analysis that is often external to your own lived experience. It is a both/and proposition as opposed to an either/or one.

So Demaris, perhaps you and I can agree in this instance that Akon may indeed be a “fraud” with respect to not having been a prisoner AND that he could still have written music and songs about the prison experience without having been “locked up.” After all, he has had experiences with the criminal legal system and hearing what he would have to say about those would be interesting and important in their own right. In fact, even if he had never been directly impacted by the criminal legal system, he could still have provided valuable insights into that system. Because as we have talked about often, the prison industrial complex impacts all of us. Even those of us who have never personally been locked up. I value your perspectives gained from having had personal experience inside but I also know that you value my ideas even though I have never been locked up.

To a great extent, Akon was victimized by the “keeping it gangsta” ethos that has permeated so much of hip hop culture since the mid-1990s. He tried to embrace a persona that he felt would make him more marketable. He was right because he became a star based on that persona. So you can begrudge him that as this is your right. But I would also ask you to think about the larger societal forces that profit from prison culture. The big companies that profit off prison labor, the labor unions that advocate that prison guard jobs never be cut, the people running music companies who profit off selling “gangsta rap.” I hope that you see that Akon is actually a small fish in a very big pond. Of course, even small fish have a ripple effect so he is responsible for his deception. Never lose sight though of who your real enemies are. I can assure you that Akon is not one of them.

I can’t wait for the day that you start your own blog about these issues. Peace to you.