“Over the last week, the media has been abuzz with news of the separation plans of Africa’s most popular singing duo, Peter and Paul Okoye, popularly known as ‘P-Square’.
Rumours of fights during rehearsals and ‘shouting matches’ between the two brothers have been rife for some time now. The alleged fight is so bad that a blogger revealed that one-half of the group, Peter Okoye, has moved out of the group’s Squareville mansion. There is also talk of their long-time manager and elder brother Jude ‘Engees’ Okoye leaving them. This was confirmed in a ‘coded’ tweet from the producer: “After 10 years, I’m done”.
The brothers are even rumoured to have hired a lawyer to divide all the assets they gathered as P-Square.
Who will benefit if the brothers break up?
Who stands to gain the most?
Will the break-up affect the career of either of them?
What will happen to the P-Square brand in general?
These are some of the issues this article hopes to tackle.
P-Square have been singing professionally for a while now (about 10 years?). Not only are they excellent musicians and dancers, their name is synonymous with energetic performances, good songs and an all-round ‘swag’ that any group will give anything to emulate. Their songs bring joy and happiness to countless music lovers the world over and in an era of band breakups, they have remained firm in their resolve not to ‘break up’. But being human beings, it seems they have [grown] tired of their alliance, though they have not come out to say they are breaking up for real.
What makes P-Square unique is the fact that they complement each other. Paul is considered to be the ‘musician’ while Peter is the dancer of the duo. This fact is also said to be one of the reasons why Peter wants out. He apparently wants to sing more. Another reason is the fact that no one in the Okoye family reportedly likes Peter’s wife Lola, especially their elder brother Jude. His absence at Peter’s wedding to Lola did not help to cool speculations.
Both brothers will not benefit as artistes if they break up. Now, I don’t know if they realise it, but P-Square is a brand, one which fans all over the world have come to love because of their togetherness. One cannot imagine either one of them releasing singles as individual artistes. Even if they want to work independently, they could adopt the Outkast model.
Outkast, an American rap group made up of André ‘André 3000’ Benjamin and Antwan ‘Big Boi’ Patton, often perform individually but still identify themselves as Outkast whenever they perform together. This is a system that could work for them instead of breaking up finally. Also, both brothers need to release a statement on this matter as soon as possible. Though their publicist has denied the story, the duo need to come clean and tell their fans what is amiss (if anything), as the more they keep quiet, the more people believe the story.
All said and done, it will not be nice if P-Square break up. They have become a source of pride for Nigerians all over the world and, like the Blogger said, I am pleading with friends and family members of the twins to intervene and not let this ‘travesty’ happen. In the words of one fan, “P-Square had better stop this break up foolishness and get back together fast!”
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