Posted by By JESSICA UMUDJE on
For the twin-star, popularly known as P.Square, getting nominated for the 2006 MTV Europe music award as best African act is a well deserved honour. Paul and Peter have, indeed, come a long way in their music career. The talented singers told Daily Sun about their new video aside revealing many things about themselves.
For the twin-star, popularly known as P.Square, getting nominated for the 2006 MTV Europe music award as best African act is a well deserved honour. Paul and Peter have, indeed, come a long way in their music career. The talented singers told Daily Sun about their new video aside revealing many things about themselves.
Background
We are Peter and Paul Okoye and our stage name is P.Square. We have just been nominated as one of the best African acts on MTV Europe music award 2006.
Video works
Peter: The truth is that we always try to do a good job. After the Get Square, we try to relax for over a year before releasing our videos. From Senorita video, we brought Get Square.And because we always like to improve on our efforts to bring out something new that is why we decided to travel to London to do the packaging of those videos. We always say we are in trouble because people always expect the best from us hence we don't joke with our videos. Imagine, we did six videos without people seeing it on TV, they just saw it in the market.
Selling the car for video
Peter: We sold our car then because we couldn't afford the money to shoot the video, but now we have enough, there isn't much stress shooting those video. We travelled to London and spent about a month to shoot two videos and we weren't paying in Naira. So, the whole experience had its good and bad sides, but we thank God it was worth it.
Working with Alaye and Weird Mc
Paul : Collaborating with Alaye and Weird Mc is one thing we were happy about. We just went to the studio with Alaye once, even the song Temptation was selected for a remix because when we found out that after Bizzy Body, it was Get Square and Oga Police. But we discovered that people really love the Temptation. That is why we decided to do a remix and it was nice.
Nomination for the MTV Europe Music Award
Paul: We went for MOBO award last month and we didn't win because we learnt that Nigerians heard about it and yet didn't vote. That's why we are serious about MTV Europe music. We have started campaigning for people and our fans to vote for us as best African act 2006. The interesting thing is that people can vote as any times as possible; so we hope to win this time. We have the assurance that a Nigerian will win.
What makes P Square tick
Peter: Well, we are different from others because of our level of creativity. Most people look at us as musicians, while some others see us as role models. We are noted for our skills in dancing, singing, acting and production. As for acting, people should look out for P Square. We hope to produce a movie soon. I think it's time the movie industry took a new turn.
Past and Present
Paul: In those days, it was quite difficult to play music because our parents did not support us but it's a lot better now. Also, we were based in the north when we started, so a lot of people didn't appreciate our music, but now its quite different because we are in Lagos, and we can meet people and the media who help to project our dreams. Now, by God's grace, everything is moving fine.
Female fans
Paul: One of the problems we face is our female fans and we also know we can't do without them. If a girl cares for me and I think she is wonderful, I would still let her know I have a girlfriend. If female fans love us that much, we would ask her to bring her boyfriend to our show, so that we will end up having more fans. I think our female fans are wonderful people and we like it when they differentiate between Paul of P Square and Peter of P Square. But there is no doubt that some of them want to go beyond being friends.
Future plans
Peter: Our fans should expect a dance movie which nobody has done in Nigeria before. In America, there are many dance movie. So, Nigerians too should expect that from us and officially we are opening our recording company, P. Square Entertainment, through which we shall combine movies, music, concert and event management. We intend to do more collaboration with international acts, such as Jay Z. We don't have to wait for them to come here, we need to go there and bring them to Nigeria. That's what we targeting in our next album.
Working with relations
Peter: We started that four years ago, when we wanted to release our first album, Senorita. We worked with different people, different managers and even different recording companies. That was possible because we were still in school. But when we realized that we were just paying people only for them to do shoddy jobs, we then decided to make the business a family affair. This gave us time to manage it very well and there was no need for us to rush anything. If we are set to shoot a video for a month, we make sure we meet our target. So, working with my brothers has been good.
Inspiration
Paul: What inspires us most is everyday thing, mostly, the things we see around us or things that have happened to us. For example, the songs Oga Police and Bizzy Body were inspired by our personal experiences.
Advice to new acts and fans
Peter : I refer to them as to our future stars, because I don't like to call them upcoming, My advice is that they should believe in themselves. Let them not think that P Square or any body can make them who they want to be. And to our fans, we look at them as the stars and we the fans, we want to tell them that they've done very well and concerning this MTV Europe award, they should not stop voting, we want to thank them and say 'we love them".