Together they mimed, dance, and make hit-tracks all around the world. They are Peter and Paul, you know better as P-Square. But separately, they don’t have same view on family, relationships and marriages.
The last time we spoke after your ‘Game Over’ album, you called it a Tsunami. How do you rate your recent Danger album?
Tsanami happened and people were shouting, this one is an earthquake. For the first time we tried to do some kind of international kind of album. The ‘Game Over’ album was for the African continent, but this time we had to try other songs like Danger for the international and European market and we succeeded too. I think we are trying to achieve everything in the line of how we wanted it to be, it is working out for us perfectly.
In your ‘Game Over’ album, you had ‘Ifunaya’, and in ‘Danger’ you have ‘I love you’ with Ibo rhyme in it. What’s the thang about the Ibo flavor?
I am an Igbo boy, and if you think everybody will respect you for where you come from, that is what I am doing. I respect the fact that we are Igbo boys, and I see no reason why we cannot speak Ibo in our songs. I don’t speak something that people would say ‘he is trying’ or ‘he is not saying it well’. Let me just maintain on my own. People doing that are the people trying, but to us people know us, people respect us, so we don’t have to make any mistake. Just do the right thing, I just can’t force myself and do Yoruba song. If we want to do Yoruba song, we will get Yoruba artiste to play his voice. And if we want to do Hausa song, we will get Hausa person to sing Hausa. As long as we are Igbo, we will sing with Ibo.
This is for Paul. To your mother, you are Paul. And to your elder brother who is your manager, he calls you Paul. Your fans call you P-Square. To Peter’s child, you are Uncle Paul. So, when will you make Peter an uncle?
Is it not if I want to? That is my personal decision that is if I want to. But I think one way or the other I want to do the right thing. I want to do the right thing that is the way I feel. I know if you have to find a woman to marry that you are not getting an understanding with, the best thing is have babies. I am not gonna get married.
In your ‘Danger’ album and recently, I notice you do more of high-life than of dance-hall. Are you drifting away from the dancing tricks?
First of all, there is a dance-hall, ‘Give me that’, that is a dance-hall song. Even ‘I love you’ is a dance-hall with the beat, but a small pattern. You also hear more of ‘Throw way’. Those were beats that we started when we did ‘Do me’ which is what is in vogue now presently. I love Nigerians, sha! (Laughs). They listen to what is in vogue now, which I think all kinds of countries recognize. But I know the originator of those kinds of music, the sekouz, people like the Cameroonians then those days but which they abandoned. Nigerians are now mixing it with a bit high-life which is work for us perfectly, so I can’t come out and say that album is R ‘n’ B, or this and that. I think it is music with a national touch that is exactly what we did.
Peter, during an MTV MAMA award, you dedicated your award to your baby-mama. How are you coping with being a father and with music in entertainment? How do you put these two things together?
It is a better wonderful thing. If you say coping, it looks like I am going through a lot, I am not going through a lot. I am loving what I am doing. I am enjoying myself. I love a son that I look up to, I can’t wait for him to do better than I have done so far. He sits down now and watches his dad sing on TV. He is a year and five months old. He sees me on TV and he knows it’s me. I am doing really good, I am not trying to cope, I am not going through anything. I am loving it, it is good thing to have kids. I will not lie to you.
I have noticed something about your albums. In ‘story’ you had talked about your fans. And in this ‘Danger’ album you have ‘Super Fans’. What is causing this craze about your fans?
People generally underestimate their fans. They don’t know that their fans can take them to their highest level. Every now and then we are either in this African country or the other, or we are in Europe or America to perform. These are not just Nigerian fans, P-Square has the highest number of fans in Africa. Without them there will be no us, we didn’t make ourselves this way. If you google P-Square , we are popular on the net than any other African musician. We just can’t stop thanking them. We own them, if we have to be talking about them in all of our music, trust me it doesn’t take anything. Our next album, we will still dedicate a song to our fans.
Unlike before, now we are seeing collaborations like with Barcket, J. Martins, and Tuface. Will there be more collaboration this year?
You will see more collaboration from P-Square. The truth is we mind the kind of collaboration we do. The song must mind P-Square, if it doesn’t mind us then it doesn’t make sense. We are not being selective. If you bring a song that suits Bracket or J. Martins, why do you want P-Square to do it? If you check the song we did with J. Martins, it fits J. Martins, and with Tu-face fits Tu-face. Just image if we didn’t do it with Tu-face but did it with Bracket, it won’t fit. So, it must fit that person. Putting P-Square to a collabo of your song, it must have an edge that only P-Square that can do it, not this person would have been better. If it is not P-Square, it is not P-Square. We are being careful, there is a lot of collabo our Nigeria artistes have done with international artistes, but the ones that Nigerians did are more popular than the ones with the international artistes. So it doesn’t make sense.
