Mid-Week Pick Up Sticks: Akon

We first heard about it from the fellow at the always well-researched San Fernando Valley Blog but it was celebrity gossip juggernaut TMZ who revealed a couple weeks ago already—and Your Mama completely missed it—that uni-named R&B/hip hop entertainer and producer Akon dropped $1,950,000 for a concrete and glass contemporary in the sort of unlikely and hot as Hades Los Angeles suburb of Woodland Hills.

Listing details show the 4,028 square foot two-story house was built in 2004 on nearly half an acre with five bedrooms and six bathrooms. At the time Mister Akon purchased the modern-minded residence there were smooth concrete floors throughout the main floor living spaces—most or all of the bedrooms appear to have been carpeted—with a high-ceilinged and sky-lit open plan living/dining area with built-in wet bar, a roomy family room, and an industrial-inspired center island kitchen with commercial-grade appliances.

Akon—born in St. Louis, MO, of Senegalese ancestry with the stunningly lengthy birth name Aliaune Damala Bouga Time Bongo Puru Nacka Lu Lu Lu Badara Akon Thiampaid—quickly brought in a team to transform the suburban residence into a series of Miami Beach-y boutique hotel lounge-like spaces melodramatically bathed wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling in overlapping layers of blue and purple light.

Mister Akon unveiled the newly rehabbed house in all it's nightclubby—ahem—glory when he hosted his own 40th birthday bash there a few weeks ago and those wily gossip hounds at TMZ managed to get a hold of some post-reno photos. And, children, y'all should listen to Your Mama and go have a look-see at Akon's vision of luxury living. Gurrrl, please. It's all very swah-vay and Las Vegas libidinous—right there in sleepy Woodland Hills!—but, Lowerd have mercy, children, do some people really want to live up in a goddamn VIP section of a nightclub? Not this property gossip, thank you very much.

The tiger-owning R&B/hip hop entertainer and producer appears to be a neophyte real estate baller and owns, according to the always informative and well-researched San Fernando Vally Blog and The Bizzy Boys at Celebrity Address Aerial, at least four or five houses in the Atlanta area. They include a faux-quoined mansion in Alpharetta on 4.6 acres bought in early 2008 for $1,65 million and a big (ugly and ostentatious) 15,000 square foot mansion on 13 acres (above) with 10 bedrooms and 10 bathrooms in Sandy Springs, GA, that was purchased in February 2007 for $2,685,000

listing photos (Woodland Hills): Rodeo Realty
aerial image (Alpharetta): Bing