It’s been 16 years since Akon unveiled his R&B hit, “Smack That,” and the 49-year-old star shared how Eminem came to be a producer as well as a featured artist on the track.
While appearing on the Bootleg Kev podcast this week, Akon discussed his past collaborations with the superstar rapper. “It’s interesting because every record I ever put out, I actually produced, except ‘Smack That,’” he explained. “Eminem produced that record. Isn’t that crazy? He always had them small little sounds, it was something minute, but it felt like Eminem.”
Akon went on to admit that he didn’t expect Em to be such a good producer. “He gave me a folder with, like, 30 tracks in there. And out of 30, I picked five. And I recorded all five, and the one that stood out was ‘Smack That.’ I was like, ‘Bro, this is it’,” he recalled.
“Once he heard my concept to it, he was like, ‘Yo, I’m jumping on this one’. And I said, ‘You know what, if he jumps on this one, this will be a single,’” he continued. “And that’s the only one we ever had together, besides all those we did. But I still have them. I literally still have those records today. These are all the records that’s gonna drop in the future.”
“Smack That,” which was featured on Akon’s 2006 album, Konvicted, peaked at No. 2 on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 dated November 4, 2006, and spent 30 total weeks on the chart.
Watch the full interview below.
