Akon lit up Paris on Wednesday night, bringing the Nights Like This Tour to a city he calls home. He didn’t do it alone.
The Senegalese-American singer and Konvict Muzik founder credited French street dance duo Les Twins for turning the show into something special. On Instagram, he put it plainly: “PARIS WAS UNREAL!!!!! Only Les Twins could help me bring such incredible energy while home! WE UP!”
That kind of all-caps reaction feels earned. Les Twins – Laurent and Larry Nicolas Bourgeois – are two of the most celebrated street dancers working today. The brothers grew up in Sarcelles, just north of Paris. They’ve built a global name through collaborations with Beyoncé, Jay-Z, and Missy Elliott. Bringing them out for the Paris stop wasn’t just a booking decision. It was a homecoming inside a homecoming.
Akon‘s connection to the city goes back a long way. He was born Aliaune Damala Badara Akon Thiam in Dakar, Senegal. He’s spoken in past interviews about spending formative years in France, and he’s long referred to Paris as a second home. Wednesday’s post made that personal thread explicit. The house emoji and globe emoji in his caption weren’t decoration.
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The Nights Like This Tour has been one of his bigger live commitments in recent years. Akon built his name in the mid-2000s. Songs like “Locked Up,” “Smack That,” and “I Wanna Love You” turned him into a fixture across hip-hop and R&B. His label, Konvict Muzik, helped him establish a long reach in the music industry. He’s stayed active as a performer and producer, and the tour has put him back in front of audiences in full form.
Paris has always been more than a tour date for him. The French market embraced his sound early, and his influence has carried into French hip-hop and the broader Afrobeats scene. Showing up there with Les Twins, two performers the city already claims as its own, adds a layer a standard tour stop doesn’t have.
Les Twins bring serious weight to any stage. The brothers gained international attention from a viral World of Dance appearance. Their style mixes hip-hop freestyle with precise, animated movement that tends to raise the energy of everyone around them. Back home in Paris, in front of a crowd that knows exactly who they are, they’re operating on a different level.
That’s the kind of chemistry Akon was pointing at. There’s an energy from performers on home turf that doesn’t come from anywhere else.
Akon clearly felt it. “WE UP!” isn’t the closing note of someone who had a decent night. It means the show hit exactly how he wanted it to.
No official recap or setlist from the Paris stop has been shared publicly yet. But based on Akon’s reaction, this one sounds like a standout on the Nights Like This Tour.
