The famous twins, Peter and Paul Okoye bare their minds
on issues bordering on their career, women and family.
Can you cast your mind back to when you started?
Yes. Whenever I see an upcoming artistes, I just say to myself that
he or she is trying. But one can’t really compare now to when we
started. Then, most Nigerian TV and radio stations don’t play Nigerian
music or support musicians.
But now, everyone of them is keying into what we do and it makes it
really easier. Then, we had to come to Lagos because we wanted to be big
in the industry. But now, an artiste could be anywhere and still make
it big in the industry.
So how tough was it for you guys when you started?
It was so tough that we had to think of how to combine schooling with
music. We had to think of our parents, how to hussle and where we came
from. Generally, it was tough and that’s why we’re not surprised at
where we are and what we have today.
Although some fans and friends may see our success story as a big
deal, the truth is that success has become part of us and we do whatever
our fans want. But it wasn’t so easy in the beginning
So how do you relax?
We invite friends, watch movies, play soccer, swim and hang out with
babes. But there’s hardly any weekend that we don’t have one concert or
the other. So we hardly rest at weekends unless when we have shows in
Lagos.
Do you live a normal life?
No way. We can’t even take a stroll on our street without people
screaming our names. My normal life included receiving my friends and
hanging out with them on the streets. But we can’t do that anymore
because people won’t just let us be.
Our normal lives are gone, seriously. We like Akara (beans cake) but
we can no longer stroll out to buy Akara anymore. Even if we’re in the
car and we need something, our P.A would be the one to get it. We miss
our freedom.
There was a time our brother told us to support some youths we see
playing football on the streets. So we bought kits and others stuff.
One day, we paid them a surprise visit while they were playing and
introduced ourselves, gave them our support and told them that we’d like
to play with them once in a while.
And it has really helped us because we go there to play on Sundays.
But we’re more careful not be get injured. And we miss going out to
eateries and local joints like the Mama-put.
So how then do you get to eat food prepared by the Mama put?
We send someone to do so. If it were in those days, we’d go there and
point at what we want to eat. The problem is, when we send someone to
do the buying, they wouldn’t know what we’d prefer.
Since you’ve become so famous, when do you think you’ll have
the time to be your real persons?
Well, It will happen some day. Our way of thinking here in Nigeria is
different from those in other countries. That’s why whenever we travel
abroad, we stay behind for a while before coming back.
This is because we’re free to go wherever we want, especially the
beaches, because that’s where we find freedom, because there’d be no one
screaming our names there.
But then we try as much as possible to go to private beaches in
Lagos. Still, we’ll end up taking pictures there from when we arrived
till we leave. At the early stages we used to think celebrity lifestyle
isn’t it, but now, we are used to it.
But I’m sure you never wished for these when you were kids?
What we asked from God was that he blesses us so that we can live a
fulfilled life and be a blessing to others. But we didn’t know the
implication of it all. For instance, whenever we go to Silverbird to
watch a movie, we’ll have to sit in the car.
Someone would go get the ticket and we’d end up staying in the car
till like five minutes to the start of the movie. Then we’ll just walk
straight to the room but there’s nothing we can do about it.
What about the girls?
The girls are the best thing to happen to us
Do they throw pants and under wears at you guys too?
It’s normal. Sometimes they bare their breasts for us to sign
autographs. The girls are the ones that give us the confidence, that
we’re doing the right thing.
Guys would just hail us but the female fans would give us signals and
make us know that we’re on the right track. So we try our best to give
our female fans all the time we think we can give to them.
