5 Times Aymos Shili Made Headlines As He Celebrates His Birthday Today. Born Amos Babili Shili, in the Joburg township of Thembisa (formerly Tembisa), the 24-year-old musician has been trying to break into the music industry for years. After introducing music at his high school and achieving some success with the school’s choir, he started being a sessionist and vocalist for local house deejays while releasing his own music, to not much acclaim. He was on the brink of giving up on music when Mas Musiq came to his house to ask for the “Zaka” vocals after discovering the song on YouTube.
At first, he didn’t like amapiano and the idea of his song getting remixed, but he quickly realised he had nothing to lose. “Within three hours after I had handed the vocals to him, the song was already all over Instagram. People were crazy about it,” Aymos remembers. “But the thing is, I was so annoyed at that time and I thought these guys have ruined my song, I couldn’t even follow my own lyrics because it was so fast.”After seeing the response from fans and how much they liked the amapiano version, Aymos figured that he could bring something different to the genre—he set out to “add the soul, bring meaningful lyrics with a message onto amapiano beats.”
Aymos is one of the few artists that are building a bridge as amapiano travels and reaches some parts of the world —producers in different regions are adopting and incorporating the sound. At the top of the year, the Thembisa-born vocalist collaborated with Ghana-UK based producer Juls on “Tembisa”, a song he regards as one of his favourite collaborations yet, along with “Potential” (with DJ C-Live and Gobi Beast) and “Ub’Ukhona” (with Mas Musiq and Sha Sha).
Music runs in Shili’s blood as he expresses on “Isegazini” with Moonchild Sanelly and Theology HD, a collaboration that came about as part of a challenge by Red Bull to get artists to collaborate virtually and create a song in 72 hours, during the lockdown in May. He initially prepared a variety of lyrics for the session, but ended up not using any of them, and had to write something new, resulting in him spending 12 hours in the studio recording the song.As much as he is well-known for being an amapiano and house music vocalist, the singer-songwriter is finally ready to show people what else he has to offer musically with his forthcoming project titled Yimi Lo (“this is me”).”I am not subject to a certain genre of music, I can literally do anything that I feel comfortable doing. I will give and serve people with all I know, all I’ve been meaning to give them all these years. I have included Afro-pop and amapiano songs,” he reveals.
Speaking on his creative process, Aymos said: “The beat has to speak to me before writing … Other than that, I honestly just love writing about real-life situations due to almost everyone can relate to the music and appreciate it more.”
Aymos says he doesn’t want to be described ad an amapiano artist. “I wouldn’t want to be viewed as an amapiano artist but rather a musician because I feel I could excel in any genre if I was asked to.”
