Akon used to pretend he was an African prince to get girls.

The 'Lonely' singer split his time between Senegal and the US while growing up and admits he would play on his African roots as a teenager, by claiming to be royalty so as to impress girls.

Of his traditional African styling, Akon said: "When I was 17, I thought I was the flyest thing on the planet. Of course, I still had my African roots so I would wear dashikis that kinda matched my jeans.

"I think I was a young Hustler at that time. I told everybody, 'I'm a prince!'

"That was my thing in high school. People would say, 'Yeah, he a prince; you know he a prince, right?' Like 'Yeah, I'm a prince, see?' That was fun!"

His brother Omar added: "People just didn't know any better so they believed that we were princes from Africa."

Akon said he got the idea from the classic Eddie Murphy movie 'Coming To America', a comedy about a misplaced African prince trying to make his way in the US.

He added to MTV: "I would play off that, because when 'Coming to America' came out years ago, it felt like that was the thing to do."