Growing up as a child in Nigeria in the late 90s you cant help but remember this twin girls with their hit single 'dide olorun mi' Taiwo and Kehinde Oshadipe have been in the music industry for over two decades with the guidance of late Evangelist Sonny Okosuns, the English Language and Literature graduates of the University of Lagos in a recent chat with Mydailynewswatchng narrates interesting facts about their personal and professional lives. Read Excerpts when you continue:
Are you gospel artistes or what?
Taiwo: We started with gospel but we sing contemporary music now. We still do gospel, there are albums that we have done that are gospel and we have fans in the gospel genre so we cannot write them off. People identify with "Dide Olorun mi" it is our song, we still perform in churches, being a contemporary artiste gives one a broader view and it's close to being a gospel artiste. There are some songs that we do now that may not be acceptable in the church but it does not make it a bad song.
Kenny: Now we do songs that teach morals, didactic songs, happenings around, and we appeal to a wider audience. We do love songs and as much as we do love songs we believe that we are role models. As much as we love to express ourselves, feminist, we have good lyrics because we are role models.
Can we talk about your brand of contemporary music?
Kenny: The definition of contemporary is universal music that cuts across board. A lot of gospel artistes go through several challenges that people really don't talk about. For me and my twin, it's been no less challenging. We have secular musicians who start singing today and tomorrow they become hits. I know it is a calling to sing but I think Pastors should encourage gospel artistes. When we go to churches to perform, they just thank us and sometimes give us outrageous amounts as gifts. If you have professionals in the choir, they should be paid accordingly. This is taking a lot of people away from the kingdom of God. We have a lot of friends that play instruments and they are musicians, after the Sunday service, they go to play in clubs, this is not good. The worldly people are supposed to be envious of those in the church because of God's blessings, the lives of the musicians in the church should entice worldly musicians but the reverse is the case. There is money in the church, it is funny to know that people in charge, highly placed people go to church, they see wonderful artistes in the church but they do not encourage them. But they spend their money on secular artistes and we say we are Christians and we love, I do not understand what is happening.
How did music start for you and why gospel?
Kenny: We grew up in the church and in a neighbourhood where we had to create our own fun because there were no fun things and places then. So when our neighbours were going to church, we followed them. We got close to the pastor's daughter who was good with singing and we wanted to be like her and that was how we started to develop interest in singing. There was a particular day we were at the backyard and Kenny started to sing and I joined her and before I knew what was happening, I discovered that I was singing a different part to the song. I did not understand what music was but I just knew it sounded very nice. Each time we were together, we love to sing the song because of the kind of harmony that we got. Nobody taught us how to sing, it was a special inspiration from God. Because we attended church with our neighbours, it was easy for us to start singing in church.Also, we were young and did not have so much experience, the only thing we thought about was our admiration of God and that was how our journey into music started and it started with gospel music.
What year was that?
It's a very long time o, like twenty years ago. We were 5-6 years old then.
At what time did you come out publicly to take music more seriously?
Kenny: Between the age of six and the time we came out, we were in secondary school. Before then, we met the sports legend, Chief Segun Odegbami through somebody in church who asked him to promote us. That was when Chief Odegbami was still hosting "Worldwide Sports" on TV with Funmi Iyanda. Later, we met the late Evangelist Sonny Okosuns. In secondary school, a friend told us that her uncle was Sunny Okosun and we did not take her seriously because we were in a public school and we thought she said that just to hype herself. Eventually, she took us to him, we sang and after 2-3 meetings he took us to his music company which was EMI, now Ivory Music. He was taking us from one office to another to sing and they exclaimed "Sunny, these girls are really good and we would invest in them." That was how we got signed up and we produced our first album titled "Jesus Came to Africa" in 1999. It was produced by Late Evangelist Okosun for Ivory Music. We were young and it was easy to do gospel music because of the influence the late evangelist had on us. We did two albums with them.
Every gospel artiste has a message of hope, inspiration, love of Christ or others, what is your message to the world?
Taiwo: Our message is love. If you have taken time to listen to our albums you would notice that we talk a lot about love, and sometimes, we talk about love between a man and woman not just agape love. We solely believe that if we love each other a lot of things going on in the country would not be happening. The greatest commandment is to love. For instance, our leaders are embezzling money, boko haram, security issues, etc. If you love your neighbour, you would not steal from him/her, you would not be living in abundance and watching your neighbour in penury.
You have spoken passionately about how the late Sunny Okosun gave you a start and groomed you, what other major things did you gain from knowing him the relationship?
Taiwo: We learnt a lot from him, song writing is major in music, which is why you see that most songs produced these days lack content, they just include loud beats that make people dance because people are not skilled in song writing, it's major in music. That is one of the things we learnt from the late evangelist. Then we thought he was using it to humiliate us because around 12am in the night when we are asleep he would wake us and play his guitar and ask us to sing and we would ask sing what? And he would reply anything that comes to your head. Sometimes, he would start and he would get to a chorus and he would ask us to repeat it for 3-4 hours and then ask us to go back to bed. It became a routine for us and we thought he was wicked but today we are very grateful for it and we are better off with it.
Kenny: He had a large heart, he taught us to have a large spirit no matter what people do to you, there was one day he asked us if we knew the meaning of "tough", he asked us to check the meaning in the dictionary and said "if you forget everything, you must not forget this word, if you want to be musicians."
How did you come to live with the Okosuns, did your parents agree to the arrangement?
Both: They had problem with it o.
Kenny: His niece took us to him and he took interest in us and got a record company to sign us on. Many times, he would inform us that we had studio sessions and we would not turn up, or we would get there late. So he took us to the studio to show us what it looked like, and what it involved. Then he said if you want to learn, you have to live with me, our parents objected because they had this wrong notion that musicians use talented girls and turn them to prostitutes, he assured our parents that he was an Evangelist and he would not do that. So our parents visited his house, met his children, wife, niece and other children that lived with him. His wife took interest in us and promised our parents that she would take care of us.
Are you still connected to the family?
Both: Very connected.
When you were younger did your parents have a problem identifying both of you and did you capitalise on that to play pranks?
Kenny: In secondary school, our teachers had problems identifying us.When a teacher punished one of us, the other person would take over from the offender who is being punished. When they realised that we were identical twins, they wanted to know who really committed the offence.
Taiwo: Sometimes, we did it deliberately.For instance, if we wanted to evade punishment, I think in every set of twins, there is always the quiet one and the troublesome one.
Kenny: In her own case, it is ironic because I have the rugged, loud voice and I sound like the troublesome one but it is the opposite.She has the soft voice and naturally people think she is quiet but the reverse is the case. It's really funny but it is part of our daily lives.
Taiwo: I really don't talk much but most times when there is trouble or somebody is trying to intimidate my twin that is when you hear me talk. When I am really upset, my voice is very loud so I fight for her. That is why they say never judge a book by its cover. (General laughter!).
Where does your inspiration come from?
Taiwo: Our inspiration comes from God, we were singing in church, going for concerts and participating in competitions and we were coming out tops so we knew that God has put this thing in us so we joined the choir. Later in our sojourn in music, we discovered that the part Taiwo was singing that day was alto while I sang the treble, then we just knew our voices complemented each other even without knowing the music notes. What inspires us majorly is God, we grew up in church and we did not know much about life, we did not really know about betrayals, hardship, relationships, heartbreaks, street life etc. Now, nature is another thing that inspires us. We watch music channels and learn from other artistes and get some beats from them. We also attended MUSON School of Music and studied the rudiments of music to get the professional training since it is a career for us we needed to invest in getting educated in it. We also studied basic keyboard, sometimes when I play, she backs up for me. Sometimes, we use the keyboard to compose our songs.
Kenny: Our relationship with people also inspires us. Also if you are thorough, your mood inspires you, if you are in a happy mood it reflects and if you are sad it reflects in the songs you sing.
Is it true that the two of you have fallen in love with the same guy before?
Taiwo: It's true, there was this guy then, he was very nice, we went to church together, it was very natural for us to be attracted to him.
Kenny: Then we did most things together; we talked about him all the time. Later he developed feelings for us but he was confused and later he travelled out of the country and we lost contact with him. And as we grew up, we have different likes and qualities we want in a man.
Taiwo: God helped us by taking him out of the country.
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