Exclusive: Kardinal Offishall On Akon's Criminal Past, ''He Spends A Lot Of $ To Have His Record Expunged''
Apr 30,2008 00:00
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Following reports of Akon's fraudulent criminal past, caught up with new Konvict Music signee, Kardinal Offishall, to set the record straight on the allegations and to shed light onto the Canadian MC's upcoming release.As previously reported, Akon's streed cred was recently put into question when The Smoking Gun released the Grammy award winning artist's rap sheet. The report discounted the singer's claims to having spent years in prison for heading an infamous car-theft ring.
According to Kardinal, the reason Akon's criminal record doesn't reflect the troubled past the singer has depicted on wax may be because the R&B star spent a lot of money to have his record cleared.
"When I first met Kon, I didn't know he wasn't allowed into Canada because of the criminal record that he had," Kardinal admitted. "Now he's able to travel to Canada, Australia, to all types of different places, because he spends a lot of money to have his record expunged."
"What that means is that there's no way Akon could travel unless he was able to deal with his record and get a lot of that removed," he continued, "he wouldn't be able to be such a big international artist if he didn't get it removed."
At that same time Kardinal thinks the media spends too much time dwelling on the negative.
"It doesn't matter who you are, whether you're a rapper, singer or actress it really seems that everything is just designed to try and pull people down," Kardinal explained. "The thing that I like about Akon is that it seems as if he's bulletproof because no matter what is thrown at him, he's able to deal with it."
Kardinal has a message to the media when dealing with such issues.
"Instead of worrying about how real his criminal past has been, they should report on the stuff that he's done now, providing aid to Senegal or working with Wyclef to aid folks in Haiti," he added. "They don't report on that sh*t. They just worry about how real he's keeping it and how many years he did in jail."
Kardinal will release his fourth studio album Not 4 Sale this July. The set will be the rapper's second worldwide release in his 12-year career. Backed by the lead single "Dangerous" featuring Akon. The album also has appearances from labelmate T-Pain, J-Davey as well as popular Birt rapper-turned-singer, Estelle.
"I've always been the kind of artist to take it to the next level and that's what this album is about," Kardinal said. "It's a perfect time because hip-hop is real weak right now. I try to push my own envelope and envelope of the game, in order to bring back some excitement to the game because it's getting real redundant."