Akon’s ‘Right Now (Na Na Na)’ surpasses one billion YouTube views

nme.com:

Akon‘s ‘Right Now (Na Na Na)’ has become the latest song to surpass one billion views on YouTube.The Sengalese-American singer-songwriter has accrued his fourth single to achieve the milestone on the streaming platform, following 2004’s ‘Lonely’, 2006’s Eminem-featuring ‘Smack That’, and 2011’s ‘Play Hard’, the latter a collaboration with David Guetta and Ne-Yo.‘Right Now (Na Na Na)’, taken from his third studio album ‘Freedom’, was first released in 2008.

Currently, Akon’s 2007 single ‘Don’t Matter’ stands at over 700million views, making it the next possible Akon song to hit one billion.In recent years, other songs that have hit one billion views on YouTube include Red Hot Chili Peppers’ ‘Californication’, Dr.

Dre’s ‘Still D.R.E.’, Rick Astley’s ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ and Cardi B’s ‘Bodak Yellow’.Notably, at last year’s Glastonbury, King Krule performed a brief cover of ‘Don’t Matter’.

It was not the first time Marshall has publicly linked himself to Akon. In 2018 he admitted that, when being interview whilst drunk, he falsely claimed Akon wrote the Sonic The Hedgehog theme tune.In NME‘s 2023 interview with Akon, he revealed that the song that makes him cry is his megahit ‘Lonely’.“I was extremely lonely when I wrote it – true story,” he told NME. “At the time, the only person who had my back was no longer there for me because of mishaps and decisions of my own.