Four years ago, I told Jude that he needs
to step down as our manager, because I didn’t want to disrespect him as
a brother, but this is business, we have to structure it. And Jude said
to me that there’s a way I’ll talk to him, and he’ll slap me. So I kept
quiet’.
‘So, a few hours after, Paul came to me
and said if I want Jude to step down it’s not a problem, but it’ll mean
that he (Paul) will go solo. The the first time word got out about
Psquare breaking up, a lot of people called us, senators, governors, and
people like that. In fact three of us were once in a private jet to go
and see someone who wanted to resolve our issues and we didn’t speak to
each other all through the flight. At the end of the day, I swallowed my
pride for peace to reign and allowed Jude to remain as our manager’.
‘I and Paul stay together in this estate and the last time I saw him was about a week ago.’
‘Now hear this, we have other collabos
with Kaha, Darey, Ruggedman. I did these songs alone. How come they
don’t have videos? Paul refused to appear in the videos’.
‘So I told Paul that when next he does collabo alone, he should be in the video
alone, because it got to a point where artistes began to feel if they
do a collabo with Paul it gets a video but if it’s me it doesn’t get a
video.
The last collabo we did was with Flavour
and I refused to do another one. Even Flavour had to speak all the Igbo
he knows to convince me before I agreed to do it. Only for my brother to
come and tell me that ‘shey I thought you said you won’t appear in any
video that I did the collabo alone? Why did you appear on this one?’. I
was sad but I knew another one will come’.
‘So Tiwa Savage called me, apparently
Paul had gone to do a song with her, not the campaign song they are
promoting now, another Psquare collabo entirely. So she called me that
she’s been trying to reach Paul to get the CD of the song from him that
he’s already done his part, so I went to Paul’s house to help ask for it
and tell him that I want to go to their studio to do my verse and he
said he doesn’t know where the CD is’.
‘I went to the Mavin studio to meet Tiwa,
when I got there, she asked for the CD and I told her Paul didn’t give
me any CD, so I called him again and gave the phone to Tiwa and told her
on phone that the CD is at Omole, so I got into the studio recorded my
verse and when I finished, everybody was clapping. I was surprised only
to realize that Paul had gone to tell them that I don’t sing or write
songs’.
‘I felt really bad and betrayed, but I
covered up for him. I jokingly asked Teebillz if they gave him Red Label
and he said yes, so I was like you guys caused it, and we laughed over
it. So when my assistant went to pick up the CD, Paul and Jude started
shouting at him to tell Peter that what is he doing at the Mavin studio?
He knows how we work. The next day, I went to Paul and told him how I
felt when I heard what he said. Only for Jude to say that he made Paul
the lead singer of Psquare 8 years ago! A leader leads, he doesn’t
destroy.’
‘I always get Ideas, most of Psquare
ideas come from me, and when I say Idea, I mean materials we need to put
out for people to see, video, stage performances and all. But when I
come up with them, nobody wants to accept it. I didn’t complain because
people still love what we do, but then again, there wasn’t much
competition in the industry back then’.
‘As time goes, we should get better, it
shouldn’t be same triangle deciding, because if we continue that same
way, we’ll lose it. All I want is a proper structure in the sense that,
we need to have proper management, business managers and all’.
‘As I speak to you right now, we don’t
have any office, no structure. When this issue started about five years
ago, our lawyer told us the way we run our business is wrong without a
structure’.
‘I’ll give you an instance’.
‘We had to go perform somewhere once, and
because I had a slight argument with Paul, he said he’s not going. The
show was the wedding of the President’s daughter, because some times
when we perform for some certain people, they always talk to me, they
don’t call Jude’.
‘I didn’t even know until we got to the
airport and at the end of the day we missed the reception, but we
finally performed at the gala night, because when I got to the airport
my brother wasn’t there, and I became confused on how I was going to
explain to the President that we can’t perform?
‘So I made up my mind to go with the
band, perform like that and lie that my brother was sick. So we left for
Abuja and when we got to the hotel dressing up my assistant manager
called that he was on the way to the airport with Paul, so we had to
wait for them to land in Abuja and that was why we couldn’t make it on
time to the reception’.
‘The president was mad. In fact Mama
Peace (Patience Jonathan) was really mad. But we eventually made up for
it with a performance at the Gala night.
Only for Jude to say Paul said he wasn’t going for a show and I still went on it with’.
‘Imagine if Jude had a proper structure
and we had contracts? That wouldn’t happen. And it was more because the
show came through me. If the show came through Jude it wouldn’t have
happened. I don’t have a problem with doing things as a family, but then
the structure and proper organization is important too. The name
Psquare is very big outside but inside we have no structure, I see
people like Audu of Chocolate City, Mavin Records, even Ubi Franklin and
I wanted us to have a structure like that. Psquare is just up there
because of the grace of God.’
‘It’s really sad that people have labeled
me ‘Dancer’, and people don’t really know what I do for Psquare. Kudos
to Paul, I’m not a good songwriter, in-fact I’ll rate myself 30%, so
when it comes to song writing, I give it to Paul 100%.
‘However, not writing songs does not
disqualify you from being a musician. I can tell you for free that a
Nigerian wrote two of the songs on Rihanna’s new album. I’ve travelled a
lot and most times people ask, ‘which one are you, the singer or the
dancer’? And it’s really sad’.
‘In Psquare, I am the creative person, I
can sit-down and tell you what people want to hear, what they want to
see and what they want to learn from Psquare. But it’s not something to
brag about’.
‘Jude directs all our videos’.
‘This whole thing began when Paul went
online and started post lyrics of most of our songs on Instagram that he
wrote them all, just because Peter brought in something to the table’.
‘I’ve been trying to bring more business
for Psquare I didn’t know it was going to cause problems. I sent my
manager to a meeting in Senegal to meet with Universal music about getting us deals, and when he came back, the way they responded to him wasn’t encouraging’.
‘I remember I once told Paul something,
when Jude was using the term ‘Our Money’ when he just became our
manager, that was when we made our first 1 million. I called Paul and
told him that our former manager used to make about 15%, now that Jude
is our manager, let’s think of a percentage that we’ll be giving him and
put it on paper’.
‘Paul was like, it’s not necessary. Probably, he went to tell Jude about it.
I’m sorry to say this, but I think Paul is weak’.
‘You know they say change is constant,
you can’t stay at one spot, as the industry moves, you move. So I won’t
say the problem we have is money. I think everybody is just dragging
power unnecessarily. Imagine Jude telling me that he’s in charge of
Psquare and there’s nothing Peter and Paul can do about it, and I look
at Paul he’s quiet about it’.
‘I’ve never seen where a manager talks to
his artistes anyhow. If there’s any issue you should call us aside
quietly to talk about it’.
‘First of all, if I as an artiste tells
you to step down, and you say Paul and I cannot do anything, then
there’s no other way I can take you out than going public’.
‘On December 14, 2015 we sat down to have
a meeting hoping to be able to set a proper structure in place, but
Paul noticed that it wasn’t working the way he wanted, so he said he
wants to tell us that he’s starting a new group.
I thought he meant he wanted to start a
record label, and he was like no, he’s starting a new group that he
belongs to. And Jude simply said, ‘anybody stop you’? He picked up his
phones and walked out of the meeting. I felt it had already been
discussed behind me’.
‘I later found out that Paul is already
recruiting the group and Jude is their manager. At the moment I heard
they are called ‘The MVPs’ I don’t know what it means yet’.
‘So how do you expect me to be managed by
the same person we’ve been having issues with, who is now the manager
of the other group. There’ll surely be conflict of interest’.
‘And it actually happened two weeks ago’.
‘Jude called me, after I had said he’s
fired. He called me on a Thursday to say ‘Hope you know we are going to
the embassy tomorrow for that show in Holland’. I know about the show,
it was already booked before the issues started, so I told him, ‘Bro you
are not my manager, talk to my manager’. He said, ‘Noted’. And the next
day, they went to the embassy with the new group members,
which means they had already set up their interview at the embassy
because it’s not possible to get an appointment in less than 24 hours’.
‘So I traced the organisers, and told
them that Jude does not represent us, he represents only Paul. I told
them this is what it takes to get Peter and Paul, Peter alone or Paul
alone’.
‘So I went on social media to protect our
careers, because if I didn’t do it, Psquare will not release any
materials anytime soon, they’ll be busy promoting their artistes’.
‘And I remember going to talk to Paul
about it before I went on social media, I went to his house he was in
his room with his friend, and I was like can he excuse us, I want to
talk to you and Paul said, no, his friend should stay, anything I want
to say should be said in front of him. So I said, no, you know we are
brothers and he was like, ‘oh, na now you know say we be brothers’.
So I said, I came to talk to him about
what’s been happening, but it was turning into an argument so I left and
I travelled out. I was away for over a month, knowing that we didn’t
have any show at that time. I went to Turkey, London to rest my mind, my
friend Samuel Eto’o invited me to come’.
HOW I FIRED JUDE
‘The day I fired Jude was at a concert.
It was the day I came back, we had a show, so I went straight to the
venue in Lagos and told Jude I want to talk to him, and he said I should
say anything I want to say in front of everyone. I was like that was
the same attitude Paul gave me before I travelled’.
‘So Jude was like if I like I should get
out, and I was like guy don’t embarrass me. He said who are you, because
you think you are Psquare? So I told him openly that if he cannot
resolve me and Paul’s issue, he doesn’t deserve to be our manager, and
he said I should get out. There and then I told him ‘You are fired’! He
looked at me and said, ‘You fit fire me’?’.
‘That was when I entered my car and started Tweeting. How else can you take him out?’
‘Long before I made up my mind, Paul already said there’s no more Psquare, If Jude leaves he goes with him’.
‘And before I announced my management, I
wanted my mind to be clear, so I went back to Paul, this time we were
alone and we spoke a lot, I told him I had no issues with him, but he
needs to stop letting Jude use him as a shield. Both of us started
shedding tears, and when we finished he still said he hopes I’m not here
to tell him that I still want Psquare and I told him I want to move on,
because he already has a manager (Jude) and I don’t, so I had to
structure myself too’.
‘And I didn’t want to allow the Psquare
name to fade before moving on. Look at Don Jazzy and Dbanj, when they
broke up, they waited for like 6 months and had to start again. Now,
that Psquare just broke up, let me use the name to move on quickly,
because there’s no time’.
‘To be honest with you, I feel if our mum
was still alive, we would have pushed her to her grave with this whole
thing. It’s really sad that even with everything going on, I still stand
with Paul’.
‘It still boils down to the fact that
Psquare was not structured. Music is like football, Messi has his
manager, Neymar has his manager, Suarez has his manager, but when they
get to the pitch, they play as a team’.
‘Before I did the Olympic deal, I’ve
brought some deals for Psquare but the people endorsing Psquare only see
Peter and Paul, but behind it’s Peter, Paul and Jude so the price goes
so high that it never works’.
‘But when a deal comes to my table, it’s
not like they called Jude and I went behind to talk to them, the deal
came directly to me from Jude’s friend. He called me and told me about
it, and before then I had already established my own beverage factory
and the deal coming was from PZ, which means I could do more business
with them, so should I lose that deal because they didn’t call Jude?’
‘And I asked them that why me and not
Psquare, they said they couldn’t afford Psquare and more so the brand
was tailored to fit one person. So I went back to tell Paul and Jude and
they didn’t say anything, they didn’t ask me not to do it.
Don’t get it wrong, we’ve been doing
different private businesses, the only difference was that the Olympic
deal had to come out public. I’ve been doing mass housing projects on my
own, Paul has been doing real estate, Jude has been doing his own
thing, he even went to do Northside record label, so it’s not like it’s
the first thing I’m doing alone. It’s just the first one that went
public’.
‘So even when I decide to open my beverage factory, people will still say why am I doing it alone without my brother’.
‘I hear lot of people think it’s all a
stunt, and that’s what I really want to put an end to. It’s not a stunt
at all. It has been going on for a while’.
‘When Jude didn’t come to my wedding,
people started saying we broke up and then others said it’s a stunt,
then when Paul posted those lyrics stuff on Instagram people thought it
was a stunt too, but the truth is that, this is not and has never been a
publicity stunt’.
‘I am telling you the truth, I am moving
on because people are already getting tired of this Psquare brouhaha,
now I have my manager Olatunde Michaels and I expect everybody to
respect that. I am a family man, a musician, singer and dancer, if I
don’t move on, Psquare will collapse and there’ll be nothing left’.
‘Already Paul has done two songs without
me but no one is saying anything, he did a song with his artiste ‘Muno’
with his name as Rudeboy did they feature me? He did a song with Tiwa
Savage, did they feature me?’
‘Last week Yemi Alade sent me her album
track list to help her share on Instagram, guess what I saw, she had a
song with Psquare that I didn’t even know about. Only Paul did it’.
‘Because I announced a new management,
people feel am the one going solo, but Paul has already gone solo, he’s
moved on and didn’t need to announce any new management because he still
works with Jude, so I had to announce mine and believe it or not,
people are booking me for gigs already’.
‘And guess what, I’ll still perform
Psquare songs, nobody can stop me, nobody can stop Paul too, we didn’t
have a contract with Jude, so I have the right to perform Psquare songs
especially the ones I took part in’.
‘I’ll also consider releasing solo songs
and even albums. Truth is – in the last album Paul did some songs alone,
I did some songs alone. ‘Bring It On’ was Paul alone, ‘Eje Ajo’,
‘Shekini’ was done by me alone’.
‘Remember the 4 songs ‘Free For Fans’ that we released, those songs were removed from the last album and I leaked them’.
‘I have some songwriters already, V-Tek writes for me, and I’m still bringing up more’.
Social media posts, today, by Peter and
Paul, might suggest they’re trying to resolve their issues, with the
possibility of putting the fracas behind. In fact Psquare is being
advertised for an upcoming performance. But, as Peter told NET on
Thursday, it’s now beyond music and management. They’re not likely to
live together in the Parkview property, which is nearing completion; and
they’ve since shared their other properties (We sighted a copy of the
contract, showing Festus Keyamo as their lawyer).
Peter Explains.
‘Because of what was happening, it was
like two against one, so I said let’s share our properties. When I said
that, Paul said if we want to share our properties, Jude must get the
same share with us otherwise Psquare will split and I was like
‘SPLIT-AGAIN?’
‘Our lawyer came and told Paul that it’s
wrong to share it equally with Jude, but he insisted, so we divided
every property we owned in Lagos, Jos, America, Abuja. In-fact the right
and left wing of the Square Ville mansion belongs to Paul and Jude now.
So that was how we shared all our properties equally among the three of us about two or three years ago’.
‘After sharing everything, I called Paul
again and spoke to him about a proper structure. We’ve been with people
like Akon and co and we see how it’s done. Right now, Psquare has
millions of dollars in royalties hanging in the air’.
‘All our endorsement and shows are shared equally between the three of us as well’.
‘After what it took to share our
properties, I was embarking on a project, so I needed more money and I
wanted to sell my house in America and buy something smaller, because I
spend close to $30,000 to maintain that condo every year’.
‘So I called my caretaker to begin the
process and she told Jude and Paul to send their data page and passport
photographs, but they refused because they know I wanted to the sell the
house. And see the value of dollars now. The house was valued at 100M
then, but if I sell it now, I could make extra 250M’.
‘And we already signed paper works and
document of the house that it belongs to me but Jude ignored it, so I
called our lawyer, Festus Keyamo to inform him about the development. He
called them and they both refused to pick his call, so he sent them a
text and requested that we should have a meeting, but Jude replied him
and said no need for a meeting that the America house will be sold’.
‘Paul said we agreed and signed on how to
share but we haven’t really shared it yet, after all Jude is still
holding on to the documents’.
‘Three of us have properties close to each other in Parkview and that’s why I want to sell my own and move to Banana Island’.
‘I can’t really understand why they don’t
want a structure, to me I think it’s ignorance, and if I decide to do
it, it’ll seem like I’m looking for trouble’.
‘People think we changed when we started
having wives. Before my mum died, she was at St Nicholas hospital on the
island, and my sisters were living in this house (in Lekki), and every
morning before my wife goes to work, she’ll leave home at 5am in the
morning to go and stay with my mum even before we get there ourselves.
And when she closes from work, she’s back with her again’.
‘So I just laugh when I hear people say
my mum didn’t like my wife. It’s my wife and sister that prepare my
mum’s meals in the kitchen’.
‘Now let me shock you: our wives, the
three of them are the closest set of people you can imagine. Even with
all that’s going on. It’s really surprising. Somehow, they respect
themselves and stayed out of the whole drama and I respect them a lot.
And that’s somehow what has kept us together for this long, otherwise
Psquare would have ended like two or three years back’.
‘The truth is I feel happy it has come,
because I’ve been staying in Psquare in fear for the last four years.
The situation now is, if you want Psquare to perform, you’ll have to get
in touch with two management, I don’t care if you pay Paul’s management
more than they pay me, once we are able to agree Psquare is still
there’.
‘I just don’t want to have a management that feels he’s in control because he’s my elder brother’.
‘And because of the legacy that I want
Psquare to be remembered for, that was why I went to talk to Paul the
last time. I don’t want us to start doing beef songs, or we see at the
clubs and we don’t greet each other, or ignore our kids and stuff like
that. And even if Psquare breaks up, I still want us to have our
relationship as brothers. If I’ve regretted anything in my life so far, I
swear to God this is not one of them, I’m happy because I’ve been in
pain for a long time’.
‘It’s good if we go and do stuff
separately so that even IF we come back we’ll have respect for each
other. I wish Paul the best and I wish Jude the best as well’...
No comments:
Post a Comment