It’s interesting how far you guys have come; do you have to pinch yourselves sometimes?    Paul: Yeah we do. But everything is too fast. Sometimes successes like ours takes a long time to happen, ‘it happens gradually.’ In our case, it’s totally different, everything is happening with speed. Each week we travel to like three countries; it’s amazing, it’s something that should happen but it’s happening fast. Too fast. Peter: We expected it to take longer, but it’s all so fast. We go to a country, and we’re like no, this can’t be happening, the name PSquare is heavier than we are. At times we wonder if we’re the ones called PSquare. It’s amazing how far our songs have gone. In Sierra Leone we had 68,000 full capacity stadium. Many people want to take the credit for discovering you, who would you say gave you your breakthrough? Howie T. He discovered PSquare. He did a lot for us. He discovered us. A lot of people saw us, and left us, we can’t deny the fact that he helped us a lot. He saw us and liked us ...we never knew anyone, he heard our song, it doesn’t take him up to a minute to know if you’re good. Then of course, our family members. What if you didn’t make it in music, what was the back-up plan? Peter: Football. We were supposed to be footballers. We used to play football. Paul was a goalkeeper.  We were in the same team (Pepsi junior team) with Mikel Obi. Football was our back up. We don’t play football anymore, if we play football, we can’t dance as easily as we dance because of injuries and all that.

What would you say has brought you this far, is it talent, good luck or hard work?
Hard work! That’s the simple answer. The talent has been there. The thing is if you have talent and you don’t work on it, you lose it. The luck was there too. But what worked for us is hard work. In our videos and songs, we always try to bring out our best. People say we do everything ourselves. Why not? We believe we can do it ourselves and we always come out with the best.

Do you still hear people complaining about your interpolations?
Peter: They used to but no more. They are now convinced that we are here to stay. They say we’re sampling and we’re still selling records. Everyone samples. Even P Diddy, R Kelly. We used to hear that before but not anymore. People like what we bring out. That’s the most important thing. So, at the end it’s about doing what you do well.
And then, to think that they compare you guys with Usher!
Peter: That question is for me. People say I look more like Usher. They want to say we are copying Usher because we look like him and we dance like him too. But there are dancers all over the world. They don’t say they’re copying anyone. Who’s Chris Brown copying? Who’s MC Hammer copying? We’ve just kept our fingers crossed because even when we travel abroad, they still say we look like usher.

From ‘Temptation’ to ‘Senorita, ‘Best Friend’ and ‘Last Nite, you talk about romantic experiences are any of these personal?
Paul: most of them are personal. Sometimes in relationships,... When we started, like me, I was dating a girl and music was rough then, she left and when things were ok, she wanted to come back. And then we started seeing other girls. Temptation will come because of the nature of our work. As an entertainer, you’ll see girls all around and you’ll be tempted.
Peter: In every song we do, you’ll see about 25 to 30 percent of what has happened.
But Peter, you’re in a serious relationship, how’s it like being in love?
I will say having a relationship doesn’t stop anyone from being with me, playing with me, talking with me. I’m involved with someone who knows showbiz. If the person I’m dating doesn’t like it then there’s no point being with me. There are a lot of distractions but my music comes first. My career is No 1. My relationship doesn’t prevent me from being with my fans. I’m not married. I’m still single. The fact that I’m with someone doesn’t mean I’m married, I’m still very single.

Are your folks okay with your dating a Yoruba girl?
Of course my parents don’t have any problems with that. I can marry anyone I like. I can marry a Muslim tomorrow. It doesn’t matter. It’s my own choice. We made up our mind to be musicians and we are successful. So any other thing we make up our mind to do, it’ll be okay with them.

Is marriage on the cards?
No, not yet. We’re still young. We’re going to be 27, so marriage is not on the cards for now. It’s not even close because, I don’t think I want to get married now. It’ll make us lose 50 percent of our female fans. Even in five years. I’m not thinking about that yet.

Do you see marriage breaking you up?
Paul: It’s very possible. Maybe someone like me. I may decide to get married just because I think I’ve seen life, then I settle down to avoid some temptations. By doing that it’ll definitely affect the music. How you relate to people, if you look at most of our colleagues that are married, they’re different.
Peter: If we get married now, it can bring some kind of confusion to us. We may have to be at the airport, he might say his wife is sick, or he has to see his son, if one is married, they’ll say the person is a snob. It will bring a lot of misunderstanding. That’s why we’re not thinking about it right now.

You think nothing can come between both of you that to separate you?
Paul: We’re not God, we can not predict’ even though there’s going to be anything, it’s going to be an understanding, we’re equal partners and we’re twin brothers.

But you find cause to quarrel, don’t you?
Peter: We argue, we fight, but it makes us better. Arguments bring better songs, better videos. We are humans. I remember when we were recording ‘Get Squared’ we quarrelled for over three months. We were living in the same house, and we didn’t talk. I didn’t like ‘Bizzy Body,’ Paul didn’t like ‘Get Squared.’ And those two songs blew us up.
What happens when you quarrel over some things, who has the final say?
Peter: I give Paul more respect when it comes to studio production and when we are working on a song. But when it comes to stage craft, he leaves it to me. Musically, Paul handles 60, I handle 40. But on stage, I handle 60 while he handles 40. And at times, our manager, Jude steps in.

Paul, looking at Lola Omotayo and Peter, do you at times feel left out? Or you have a partner we don’t know about?
I don’t see it that way. It’s a normal thing. I don’t feel somehow about it. The person I’m dating, we go out together when she’s around. It’s the same thing, unless you’ve never seen me with my girlfriend... I’m not that outgoing, I’m an indoor person.

So tell me about your girlfriend?
She’s a great person. She understands the difference between Paul and Psquare, and at times she doesn’t. We met when I was about to graduate from the University. Her name is Anita. She’s so beautiful. You know I won’t go out with someone that’s not beautiful. And because I’m not outgoing person, most people don’t know her

Is PSquare getting married on the same day?
Paul: I don’t like it. We are different people. If we do it, it’s just for the public. Even dressing the same, I do not like it, there should still be individuality.

By the way, who gets the most attention from the ladies?
Peter: For me, I get more attention because I’m a very crazy person. There’s no time I perform that I don’t take off my shirt. When people talk about PSquare, they talk more about Peter. I kiss ladies when I’m on stage, I love playing with people, so I get more attention because I give freely. During one show, I pulled out my jeans and gave it out, it was crazy. The love they showed me was too much. A guy was crying that I must give him something, so I gave him my jeans and ran backstage with my boxers, before then I had given them my earrings, my necklace, everything.
Paul: It depends on the ladies. Some of the girls are crazy about the rough guy. They say I’m the quiet guy. Fans are crazy, so they believe its Peter. But when they come closer they believe I’m the right person. Peter gives great vibe. But when they come closer, they find out it’s me.

Has there ever been a time when you both had to compete for a particular girl?
Peter: There’s never been a time like that. We’ve never had any argument on a particular girl. We don’t do that. Maybe one way or the other we find out that a girl walks up to us... about 65percent of the girls we know walk up to us.

How do they even know who’s who? Most people can’t differentiate you?
Paul: They know now. Then, they didn’t know because we used to have the same shape, but now, Peter is built so they know. I want my people to love the real me and not what I’ve formed myself to be. That’s why I do not gym. I love when people scream at Snoop more than when they scream at Usher.’ Snoop, why would a lady like him? It’s only for the music, not that he’s fine, or sexy' I want to be loved for my music, if I had a way to look uglier I would do it.
Peter: They know the difference now. I used to braid my hair and he had low cut.

Tell me the truth, growing up, did you guys ever think you were going to be such big stars? Was it something you thought about?
Paul: Personally I always knew. I knew something was going to make us great. It could be music, or football, or anything we’ll do that will be popular even if not me. When I was younger I loved creating things, but all of a sudden those things were fading away. I realised that the product and the person have to be popular.
Peter: Yeah we knew. Even when we were little, we started selling some of our stuff just to be in entertainment. We once sold our Xmas clothes to buy a radio, or exchange some of our things for music gadgets when we were as young as 14. Up till now, we risk everything we have for music.

Didn’t your parents try to discourage you from doing music, especially since your elder brother Jude, had failed to make in with music?
Paul: Using Jude’s example, he was doing music, but no one supported him. He thought maybe what happened to him was going to happen to us, but we were stubborn. Our parents said we should choose between music and school. Later, our dad stopped paying our fees in the University. Our mom was always there. At times she’ll get tired, she just wanted to see where it’ll all lead to... I’m happy she’s reaping the dividends now.

And now that you’ve just invested a fortune in your family bakery, they’d surely be proud of you?
Peter: They are really proud of us.
Paul: They used to think musicians make money and chase girls but they see that we don’t want to go back to where they came from, we don’t want to go back to those days in Jos. It was rough. Hustling and gambling just to make money to eat and all that. We don’t want to go back to that kind of life. It was rough. We’ve invested in music and other areas that we can run back to even if music stops working.

You reportedly bought some plots of land in Jos too... tell us about it?
Paul: It’s in Port Harcourt. We finished a bakery; “Twins Bread.” We’re hoping to move to Abuja. The land in Anambra is there too but we’re looking at all that. We bought 20 plots of land in Jos. We donít even know what to do with it. It’s so large!

And the ones in Lagos?
Yeah! like our house in Lagos now.. It’s our property. It’s not easy to pay for a house like this automatically. Even if you are paying for it gradually, it’s yours already. We’ve got a plot of land in Lekki too. We’re just investing in these things.

After all the hype and drama, a lot of stars are usually boring and lonely people, do you still keep in touch with your childhood friends?
Paul: Yeah, we keep them all.
Peter: We were in Jos last week and we invited everyone home to be with us, everyone.. We had a party in the hotel, when the bodyguards were pushing them, we were like no, these are our people, everyone... we were close to tears, even those that had problems we solved as much as we could, we did it and we were happy about it, we can’t solve all but it’s just to show how much we appreciate them.

What fond memories of childhood do you have? How was it like growing up?
Peter: Growing up was hell.
Peter, there was this particular rock behind our house... we’ll climb the rock, sing and disturb everyone... then a woman used to sell “akara,” we’ll buy from her...we were doing that because someone said if we wanted to sing, you have to climb a very high place and sing so people can know you can sing.
Peter: When we went home last week we went back to every where we grew up in. I remember growing up, my mom was a tailor and my pop was trying to run a bakery. It wasn’t easy.

Now you’re working on a new album, do you think it’ll be better than ‘Get Squared’?
Paul: There’s always fear that you can never do better than your best album... it’s like MJ doing better than Thriller... but we do not have any fear, we know people will just say: These boys again! It’s all about making people happy now, music that’ll make you happy.
Peter: Our fans, those that love PSquare. Even those that do not like us, they’ll see that we’ve come to stay that we’re here to stay. We are bringing a serious revolution to the music industry, look at our house, someone came here and said, why are you guys always trying to show others how things should be done? We’re bringing out good music because we live in a comfortable environment.

You sold your two cars to finance the first videos for “Get Squared’ what if the album had failed?
Peter: If the album had failed I would have been somewhere hustling, trying to get myself back to football. Even my dad was like, ‘so you sold your cars because of video?’ But we did it, we knew what it meant, even after that. We took another risk when we were shooting Temptation...we emptied our account, we rented camera alone for £300 per day and we shot for two weeks, we paid for insurance... over £4000 it was a great risk, but we are happy it worked out.

What are you thinking of selling now, to execute your new project, or you’ve saved up enough?
We don’t have to sell anything now, we have everything we need, we can afford anything we want to do now... there’s a risk but we can afford the risk now, what we’re about to do will shock everyone, we have to do better than what we’ve done before.

What’s the greatest thing about being twins?
Peter: Twins always have luck... they’re always lucky... two different brains working together.

And what are the downsides?
If one is wicked or totally different from the others, like if one is a criminal, he can put the other person in trouble, if Peter is a bad person, they’ll always point fingers at Paul.

You run your business as a family thing, your brother directs your videos... Another one makes your costumes, one manages you, what are the advantages?
Peter: We’ve always worked with different people. They keep disappointing you... but working with your family... you work with one mind, knowing that if you fail, you fail the whole family, then they see you as younger ones, you can always rely on your brothers..

And the disadvantages?
Peter: When you have your senior one who is working for you, you try to talk to him. And you remember he’s your senior brother... you shouldn’t talk to him, that way, your manager does something wrong, you want to talk to him and you remember he's your elder brother.

Your mother has a pastoral ministry?
Paul: It’s all about healing and miracles... they see dreams, vision... she has an orphanage home, free people that are disabled and all that, whatever is happening to us today, she had seen the vision, we consult her before doing anything.
Peter: She doesn’t mind that we do secular music, we believe in God... we pray always, it’s not wrong to do music, this is what God told us to do.

Do you see yourselves taking up her work someday?
If God says so. If it’s His will. But for now, we’re still doing what we do best.

You make a lot of money, say the truth, when was the last time you paid tithe?
Paul: This last Easter. I paid in Lagos and in Jos.
Peter: Same thing. We do it for PSquare, we even do more than that. When we were in Ilupeju, there were kids that we were paying their school fees... their father rides an Okada... we bought it for him. We’ve taken up paying the kids’ fees even after secondary school. These are not Christians they are Moslems... About 12 of them. These are things we do for God more than paying tithe. We like to give back and pray that God remembers us for ‘not for putting off our clothes on stage.’

You felt very bad when you didn’t win the MOBO for best African act in 2006, do you really think you were cheated?
Peter: We were cheated. We were used. Even at a point in that hall the person that won, let him come and play a show in Nigeria and let’s go and play a show in Ghana, even if it was Lebo that won, we wont mind, but not Batman, we were used, he had been in London before us, the whole thing was a set up.. But the best award one can win is the one from our country. Not the one outside... That’s why we cherish the hip hop world awards... It’s authentic, first and second year, not because we won, but it’s good when we won NMA again, even though we couldn’t go, it was great.

And then you shunned MTV Europe Music Awards in Denmark, what were you protesting?
Paul: Two things happened and we got the visa late and again when we were supposed to travel was when there was a plane crash, we got our visa and had to return the next day, if we had travelled that day, the weather was bad.. We just thought let’s not go again but the time was gone... we would have arrived the evening of the award, then we saw a mail they sent to the media suggesting that Freshlyground was going to win, so we were like, it’s not worth it, it was painful because we cancelled three concerts because of the awards.

Your marketer TJOE keeps giving you brand new cars and SUVs’ what do you think he’ll give you next, a house?
Paul: It’s possible. He has done a lot, people used to say a lot of things about him. But they’re wrong. Except he decides to disappoint us tomorrow. He’s been good to us and I believe we deserve it.