Time in prison for car theft freed up Allaune Thiam to think about where his life was heading. The answer was nowhere so Thiam turned to music, emerging as red-hot rapper Akon. (Dave Thomas, Sun Media)

Akon is the ultimate multi-hyphenate: Rapper-singer- songwriter-producer-clothing designer-father-reality show star-convicted felon-polygamist.

Wait a minute, scratch that last one.

The Senegal-born, Atlanta-based artist -- whose real name is Allaune Thiam -- admits the recent rumour that he has three wives got out of hand, and it was largely of his own doing.

Turns out he only has one wife and three sons -- aged five, nine and 10.

"There was a big rumour about me having many wives," said Akon, in Toronto this week to promote his sophomore album, Konvicted. "It started off as a joke and it got serious. And then I was just running with it to see how far it'd go. In a way, I was causing controversy, 'cause I knew certain people that wouldn't normally attend to me, that will make them go, 'What?' So, in a way, it was a publicity stunt."

Actually, it's Akon's father, jazz percussionist Mor Thiam, who has three wives back in Senegal, where it's an accepted practice for Muslims.

Akon visits Senegal as much as he can in his capacity as an ambassador for youth. Through a foundation, the music star is helping build schools, hospitals and recreation centres for the children of this homeland.

"Anything in the development of the young generation, I'm pretty much involved in," said Akon, dripping in bling, including an oversized diamond-encrusted watch.

The onetime felon, who moved to New Jersey from Senegal with his family when he was around eight years old, has clearly come full circle after serving three years in prison for being, as he put it, "the ringleader of a notorious car-theft operation."

But it was hardly what you would call hard time.

"I wasn't scared at all," Akon said. "Because you've got to think a lot of those people in there are just no different from everyday people, just caught up in the situation. I just think the whole aura of just being locked up, you think of killers, murderers, rapists, but it depends on the size of the crime, that will determine what facility you're at. If you're a murderer and you're in with other murderers then you got something to worry about. I was with people that were in there for fraud, white-collar crimes, cheque-cashing, minor stuff. "

Still, he credits the experience for turning him around.

"That's what saved my life," Akon said. "Because that's where I pretty much organized my life. Sitting in there, I just knew that wasn't really the life I wanted to lead. I knew that wasn't it. So it gave me the time that I needed to focus on all that's happening right now. There was nowhere else left to go (but music). As a felon, you can't work. You can't do anything, really, so it was like, the only thing that you really can do and be profitable doing is music, really. This is the only avenue that allows you to make a mistake and still become a millionaire."

In fact, Akon is currently negotiating with Viacom for a new reality show that would see him "going to all the jail facilities to find the next me. It's almost like the flip-side of American Idol. You find the troubled kids."

Working with diva Houston on new album no problem

Akon says he had no trepidation about working on Whitney Houston's next album, despite the singer's troubled reputation the past few years.

"Actually, to me those make the best records," Akon told Sun Media. "Whatever the situation she went through, I felt like with the reputation and the media blasts and all that, it's going to make the biggest record. That's what I want to capture in these songs. I felt like all that she went through, nobody ever really heard her side. My songs will definitely express the sort of stuff she's gone through."

The rapper-singer-songwriter-and-producer got the call to write some new songs for Houston from legendary Sony-BMG North American chairman Clive Davis.

Working with pop stars is nothing knew for Akon, whose latest album, Konvicted, includes appearances by heavyweights Eminem and Snoop Dogg.

Akon also has collaborated with Gwen Stefani -- on the title track from her second solo album, The Sweet Escape and is part of her upcoming tour -- and Elton John for a future hip-hop album.

"I don't have boundaries when it comes to the music thing," he said. "And I think that's a mistake a lot of artists make -- they contain themselves in this box where they can't do anything outside of the genre they're known for and it limits you, period, from growing."