Finding out early on that winning over one’s hometown is an artiste’s first greatest achievement and working towards that was a big expectation for Amstag to meet with the trap music tracks he was putting out. His transition to the Afro-beat genre was derived from a need to conform and get validation from his peers. Amstag, real name Stapain Gatore, is a fast rising Rwandan Afro-beat artist based in Canada. While his music career became publicized in 2016 with the debut of his first song ‘Bad B***h,’ his relationship with music started long before that, and it traces all the way back to childhood. His intrigue with music began at a very young age and rather than listen to songs purely for enjoyment, he always delved into how they came to life, an activity he enjoyed doing with his sisters. “I would listen to songs and vibe to them but I really like listening and figuring out what instruments were used and how the sound came about, and that’s one of the things my sister and I bond on,” he says. Having been raised with a Christian background, Amstag’s exploration began in the church, but not as a singer. Growing up, he always fell into church entertainment circles and his introduction to performing arts was as a member of the dance crew at church. To kick off his high school journey, Gatore enrolled at Maxwell Adventist Academy in Kenya, an experience that could be described as the roots of his journey with music. Like every other educational institution run by religious bodies, the academy had strict rules and acknowledged the Sabbath like it was a content of the constitution, but what really developed his music etiquette was the mandatory elements of their curriculum that stipulated that every student learn an instrument after regular 9-5 school hours. “Being obliged to learn an instrument after regular class hours helped me explore music, from reading notes to playing and singing, and I had joined the school choir at the time, and that helped me bring it all together.” His time in Kenya, was cut short when he moved to the US to complete secondary school and pursue further studies, but that elevated his journey with music even more. In a ploy to find his people and return to his roots as an entertainer, Amstag started deejaying in his final years of high school all through to his college days which gave him the space to explore further into different genres of music and the extent at which they resonate with others, as well as himself. “When I moved to the States I wanted to find my community and deejaying helped me connect with them, and find my sound along the way” says Amstag. When he’s not in the studio or spinning records, Gatore is an architecture student, while he attributes it to his father, a professional visual artist himself, who has in one way or another passed his sketching/drawing tastes over to Gatore. To indulge the music enthusiast in him, Amstag often spent time with producers whilst they worked on various projects, and they sought his input on the quality and content of work they put out and it is on one of these pursuits that his first record came to life. “I spent a lot of time in the studio experimenting with music and sound production, but I did not visualize myself recording music. I had a studio session with a friend who produced music, and recorded something I had written recently. I was hesitant at first but I started having fun with it when we started, and decided to release my first song shortly after.” Shortly after his first song was released in 2016, the 25-year-old experimented with the trap music genre which had been put on trend at the time by the likes of Migos, and while it was a step up from his first song, it didn’t quite resonate with his target audience as much as he had hoped. In an attempt to create a better body of work and make music his friends would enjoy listening to even if they didn’t know who he was, he embarked on a fun filled summer and a couple of wild nights out that made him realise that Afro-beat music was the genre he and his peers enjoyed most, and that gave him the push he needed to incorporate it into his sound. “I noticed that when I was out with friends we were jamming to Afro-beat and dancehall songs most of the time, and I wanted to make music that my friends would want to jam to at a party.” The knowledge that an artiste’s first momentous stride is to win over their hometown had been bestowed on him early on and that’s what fueled him to experiment more with tropical Afro-beat and Dancehall genres, and his main aim at the time was to get his friends genuinely excited about the music he was making, which he was able to achieve all through 2018. When asked about his momentous endeavor as an artist, Amstag shared the experience of releasing “S**y Body” in 2018 as a memorable one. The song released in May 2018, not only won over his community like he had wanted, but also got a lot of attention especially during the summer, which was good for his self-esteem. “After I released the song, I got so much good feedback from my friends and people I didn’t know. Every time I logged onto my socials there were new videos of people jamming to the song and I was so grateful that I got to make something that people enjoyed, because I make music to make people happy.” Amstag has collaborated with artists such as Misss Kami, Gisa and more recently he spotted a feature on E.T’s album “It Takes a Village”. The 25- year- old artiste plans to release an album dubbed ‘Vibrations’ in June.
