US R&B singer Akon, who has been talking since 2018 about building a new city in Senegal, said at a press conference on Monday that construction work will start next year.
He said that the identities of the investors cannot be revealed but that a third of the $6bn (£5bn) funding had been secured.
The architect behind the city, Hussein Bakri, said the city’s population would eventually reach 300,000.
Akon’s real name is Alioune Badara Thiam. He was born in the US to Senegalese parents.
He explained he had run into a lot of African-Americans that didn’t really understand their culture so he wants to build a city or a project that will give them the motivation to know that there is a home back in Africa.
