Akon: I Passed on Signing Drake Because He Sounded Like Eminem

Akon has revealed that he passed up an opportunity to sign Drake because he thought the Canadian star sounded too much like Eminem.

“At the time, believe it or not, Drake sounded more like Eminem,” Akon says. “That’s every artists’ development. You can see the difference between that demo and ‘Best I Ever Had’.”

He says that Kardinal Offishall brought Drake’s initial demo work to him and then a bidding war began because his still had advanced and he was a stronger artist.

“That’s when Kardi was like ‘N*gga, I told you this n*gga was going to be the sh*t,'” he continued. “I said, ‘well, reach out.’ He said, ‘you can but the lowest bid right not is a million.'”

“Out of all the artists today, to me, [Drake] is worth every single f*cking penny,” Akon added. “Every single penny. That motherf*cker’s a genius, bro. It’s revolutionary what he’s done.”

Watch the clip below.