Washington, July 30 (ANI): Whitney Houston has confessed that she was apprehensive about working with pop sensation Akon, when her mentor Clive Davis first suggested the collaboration.

The ‘I’m every woman’ hitmaker wanted to recreate her 1999 hit ‘My Love Is Your Love’, in which she worked with Wyclef Jean, but had reservations in regard of the ‘Locked Up’ singer.

“When Clive told me I would be working with Akon, I thought, ‘Hmm, interesting, um, all right,’” Contactmusic quoted her as saying.

She said: “I wanted the record like ‘My Love Is Your Love’ with an island feel. I wanted an island record because ‘My Love Is Your Love’ is so huge and it has its own fashion with Wyclef.

“I wanted that feeling, but I didn’t know who could do that. And Clive came and said, ‘Akon is the guy that we’re going to work with.’ And I was like, ‘OK, Akon. OK, I can deal with that.’ ”

In fact the first meeting with the ‘Lonely’ singer did not convince her that she could pull it off with him, but is now glad, that it worked out really well.

She added: “I was asking him, ‘Did your mother name you Akon?’ And he said, ‘No, it means a convict.’ And I thought, ‘Oh, God. OK, all right, I can handle that.’

“He’s a gentleman. He did his work very well. We did it very quickly, very diligently, and I’m very proud of that record. It’s a great record.” (ANI)