Akon: He don't see nothing wrong with a little bump 'n' grind - but do you?
Dry humping. Two words I bet Akon hopes never to hear ever again. One minute he's a million-selling R&B sensation, enjoying the fruits of his labours onstage in Trinidad, the next he's vilified as a pervert. Now, three weeks after the singer was filmed aggressively (and at great length) humping an underage girl onstage as part of a dance routine, US phone company Verizon Wireless decided to pull $3m worth of sponsorship for the Gwen Stefani tour in which he was scheduled to be the support act. Stefani's people seem a bit bemused over the surrounding furore, Trinidadian police have dropped the investigation, but the controversy won't die.
But were Akon's actions inarguably sinister? Watching the clip, the footage is jaw dropping. It is an inarguably violent physical display. Whatever genre this kind of dancing falls under, it looks painful, it looks embarrassing and it certainly looks like the kind of behaviour few young women (her name being Danah Alleyne in this case) would want to engage in with Akon.
That said, though, there are factors in Akon's defence. On one hand, what some bloggers have referred to here as "dry rape" is also a common style in Caribbean dancehalls; entire nightclubs are dedicated to competitions, man on woman, of this nature. (Watch some here.)
It's also worth remembering that despite the fact that the girl is under 16 (her actual age is yet to be verified), therefore legally a child under Trinidadian law, she was in an over-18s club and Akon wasn't to know that she had slipped under the bouncers' radar and onto the stage, apparently happy to take part in his routine. One would hope that he would have thought twice about involving her in such an outrageously sexual display had he known how young she was.
Have Verizon overreacted? There is a case to say that they have, ignoring cultural differences along the way. That said, of all those who have expressed sorrow over the incident Akon is not one of them and Alleyne's own view of the incident seems hardly to assuage any unsettled feelings: "I did not know what to do and with the crowd cheering and stuff I guess I got a little carried away", she said. "But there was nothing I could have done about it. I was in a state of real shock." What do you think?
