UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL WITH NIGERIAN BORN TWIN-ARTISTES---TWIN-X

Source: nigeriafilms.com

They are a set of identical twins that hold the entire crowd spellbound whenever with their scintillating performance. These Nigerian born artistes that love to do nearly everything together. In recent chat with nollywoodgists.com's Taiwo Obatusin they give answers to their background, how

they got into music and the influence their dad's collection of evergreen songs had on them and a wide range of issues.

Excerpts:

Can we meet you?
Our names are Tywo and Kenny Isaac-Akintoye we hail from Ibadan, Oyo State.

What about your background?
To us growing in Ibadan was an interesting aspect of life. We have a father

who then was a serving military officer, our mum a teacher and a disciplinarian, still in service. We grew up more with our mum because our dad was always travelling around the country. Growing up as kids was fun; we are from a nuclear family of a brother, a sister and the twins, we love one another and it was obvious. The kind of life we lived then we would say

had this kind of itinerary; go to school, after school read your books you and don't need to go out of the house and if there is any need that means you will sneak out of the house. Another interesting aspect of our growing up was that we had to live in different parts of the country; sometimes in the North, East and West a WAZOBIA upbringing you would say. For the North,

we lived in Zaria, for the Southeast we lived in Akwa Ibom and Makurdi in Central Nigeria. Unfortunately we can no longer perfectly communicate in Hausa language. We attended Army Children's school, which is a tradition for the kids of any military personnel. We later attended Wesley College of

Science, Ibadan for our secondary education. The first time we had to be separated in life was when Kenny had to study Science Laboratory Technology in The Polytechnic Ibadan and I had to study Public Administration in Ibadan

Polythechic I (Tywo) got admission to study Economics at the University of Ado Ekiti and later got admission to study Computer Science at the Lagos State University.

How did you get into music?
We grew up in the midst of music, our mum sings a lot when at home and outside the home we were members of the Junior Choir in our church, the Anglican Communion. As kids then loved to sing and gradually we graduated into the senior choir. In the course of singing in the church around 1997 we started a highlife band, and we sang classical music and not contemporary

because the church influenced what we played. All these gave us the opportunity to learn the rudiments of music and the theories. We had previously formed a group called the Glee Boys in 1994; this was mainly an accapella group. Those of us that made were members of the group were friends and members of the choir. Dokun Oyero now in the United States coordinated the band.
On our own we listen to a lot of hip hop music and works of great musicians in Nigeria like, Ebenezer Obey, Sunny Ade, Orlando Owoh, and Fatai Rolling Dollar which have had a great influence on out music and style till date.
By the time we went into music we already knew what we wanted to do through the experience in the choir, Acapella group, Glee Boys Band and influence from our dad's collection of evergreen songs of some musicians we just mentioned.


How many albums and awards do you have to your credit?
Our first album was a single "Mama Mi" in 2001 this was meant to be followed

by a full album but things went sour with the record label, XL-House the deal for the album could not be sealed. In 2003 we went back to the studio,

added some tracks to the former single and a remix of "Ninu Ile", the title of the album is "Plenty Money". This with all intents and purposes is meant

to be our debut album.
On awards we have some nominations, as best new artistes, and promising acts. As we said earlier XL-House was meant to release our album, which was

done. And you know nobody will give an award when to done release any album. We waited for about two years and we did not want to loose our relevance so we had to leave XL-House and pitch tent with M&C music.

Which will you consider your most challenging performance?
The most challenging performance we did was our first major show, which was at Motherlan in 2001. It was the first show we did after the release of "Mother Mi". We were obviously new artistes who had to perform alongside Plantazion Boys and Maintain, we had a lot of points to prove. It was going

to be first time we would sing our new song on stage and the first time our manager would see us perform live without backup and all that. We were nervous but our performance became the highest point of the show.

What about the most Rewarding Performance?
Let us not talk about money. I think the most important performance to any artiste is the crowd you are performing for not the money. We prefer a performance of N10, 000 with a crowd of 1 million people to that of One million Naira with 1,000 people. If we consider this factor we will talk of

Lekki Shows, Kuramo Beach Shows, MTN Y'hello shows and others.

Why did you relocate from Ibadan to Lagos?
It is obvious that Lagos is the centre of Entertainment in Nigeria and for the purpose of commercials everything comes to Lagos. The crowd, the multinationals that are stakeholders in music have their head quarters in Lagos. Initially we thought we should stay back in Ibadan but at a time it was obvious that if we had to be relevant in music especially with events everyday we had to move to Lagos.

How do you cope with female admirers?
As an artiste it is part of what we are meant to experience. To us women are relevant in everything especially music because it is a natural thing.
It is an opportunity if women admire us because they make lot of things happen.

What is your philosophy about life?
We have the same philosophy because we grew up seeing everything; we passed through the same life experience so we think alike. To us life is about you

doing your best and if you are thinking don't think you are the only one thinking someone else has another perspective to the issue you are considering.


How do you unwind?
We play our guitars and sing together; to us it is the best form of relaxation.

There are rumours about you guys travelling to London soon, can you substantiate on that?
A lot of people have been talking about some international shows but we are taking our time and we have not tied the knot of any agreement. Though we have our plans, our sister and cousins are in the United Kingdom so we can find ourselves visiting there soon. Basically when we get to London like any

community we will do one or two things to help promote our song.

Words for your fans
We thank our fans for being there. We appreciate the understanding, patience and their being faithful to us. We promise not to let them down without them we are nowhere. God bless you all.