It's safe to say that Akon has done well for himself, but he did fumble one major bag.
During a recent interview with VladTV, Akon says he passed on signing Drake to his Konvict Muzik record label because he sounded too much like Eminem.
"At the time, believe it or not, Drake sounded more like Eminem," Akon said at the clip's 2:34 minute mark. "That's every artists' development. You can see the difference between that demo and 'Best I Ever Had'."
Akon goes on to explain that fellow Toronto rapper, Kardinal Offishall, brought Drake's early demo work to him. By the time Drake developed his style and sparked a bidding war with "Best I Ever Had" and So Far Gone, the price of the brick had skyrocketed.
"That's when Kardi was like 'N***a, I told you this n***a was going to be the shit,'" he continued. "I said, 'well, reach out.' He said, 'you can but the lowest bid right not is a million.'"
Akon has spoken about passing on Drake before, but this is the first time he's revealed that Drake's likeness to Eminem turned him off. Despite overlooking Drizzy, Akon did make big scores as an executive. He signed T-Pain and was responsible for the launch of Lady Gaga's career. Still, nothing compares to being aligned with The Boy.
"Out of all the artists today, to me, [Drake] is worth every single fucking penny," Akon said to DJ Vlad. "Every single penny. That motherfucker's a genius, bro. It's revolutionary what he's done."
Watch Akon talk about almost signing Drake above.
