Encomium
After a protracted absence from the music scene, there are indications that the famous Twin-X twins; Tywo and Keni Akintoye, are staging an iconic comeback to the music scene.
The award-winning twin brothers, who dazzled both local and foreign music buffs with their evergreen cut, Mother Mi, stun in new photos exclusively released by their publicist, Bayo Adetu.
Twin-X’s journey into the Nigerian music mainstream started in 2000 when they met Big Bamo of XL House, the man made popular for discovering another Ibadan-based boy group, Maintain. While they recorded their own songs, the duo provided vocals at several shows for Maintain who were only rappers, and on May 27 2001, their debut, Mother mi was released to wide acceptance, the video of which memorably featured many of Nigeria’s hottest celebrities at the time, including Nollywood stars, Uche Jombo, Steph Nora Okere, Jennifer Eliogu; Kennis Music boss, Kenny Ogungbe; ID Ogungbe, Nigezie boss, Kwame, Tony Tetuila and others paying tributes to their mothers.
Their first major publicized performance was at Gulder Mic Check 2001, where they surprised the organizers and Dan Foster, the MC with their stage presence and soulful singing. They established their identity as a group totally different from the then highly criticized Maintain. The show also featured Nigeria’s biggest boy band then, Plantashun Boyz, and defunct girl band Kush and Maintain.
While XL House only released the song Mother Mi as a single, Twin-X enjoyed patronage from show promoters and for many years they shuttled school and travelling for live shows. Tywo was then studying Economics at University of Ado Ekiti (UNAD) while Keni studied Computer Science at the Lagos State University.
Their fan base grew significantly across Nigeria and their name became synonymous with Motherhood, especially among students in Nigerian tertiary institutions. The track Mother Mi also continued to receive high ratings across the African continent and was at a time referred to as the best mother song of the new generation of Nigerian musicians and second only to Sweet Mother by Prince Nico Mbarga in the all-time ratings.
In 2003, they parted ways with Big Bamo and by 2004, they released the album, Plenty Money on M&C Music with more videos, including their 2003 remake of legendary Ebenezer Obey’s Miliki. The album consolidated on the success of their debut as they continued to grace many big stages across Nigeria, including the 2005 Star Mega Jam along with Ja Rule.
In 2006 they started their label – Deuce Records – and were made the official voice of a Nigerian telecom company called O’net, the track Plenty Money was adopted as soundtrack for a BBC radio drama and they also went back to the studio and teamed up with Don Jazzy and K-Solo to record Oya.
In 2007, they released Oya and travelled to the United States as African representatives at a Conference Of Entertainment Entrepreneurs organised by America’s Hoodhard DJ coalition, they also recorded a duet with American rapper, Stone a former member of Lil’ Wayne’s Cash Money Records and member of the D’boyz group, and between 2007/08 with the song, Oya getting more popular in the diaspora, they had a tour of few states in the US and shot the video for the song in Atlanta and New York. They also promoted their home soccer team, Shooting Stars FC in the video, spotting the club jersey and featuring some of the players.
