Official Biography (courtesy of Amatus)
Amatus spent the earlier years of her life in the SouthSide of Chicago across the street from the Cabrini Green Projects in Her father’s mosque. Being the daughter of a sharecropper and Imam taught her some of life’s harder lessons at a very early age. After her parents divorced Amatus spent her high-school years in Philadelphia’s Germantown area.
A nerd at heart Amatus started hanging around music studios at age 14 in NY and sat in on sessions with the Roots, Erykah Badu, Common, and many others. It wasn’t until a chance meeting with Bass legend MeShell Ndegeocello and her lending Amatus her first sequencing Keyboard (Triton) where her love of production and being an artist emerged.
After moving to NY and being a student in the city, Amatus supported herself making clothes for small boutique shops and some of the artists that she loved. Her small line of clothing 345prospect inc, was picked up by Barney’s Co-op for two seasons. Mixing the love of making things with her hands weather it be music, clothes, or writing with a pen, Amatus stayed busy and inspired.
In 2007 her brother was killed by gun-violence back home in Chicago followed by her cousin in 2010 and roommate in 2011. It was after these events where she decided to take producing and the craft of being an artist seriously.
Currently Amatus is scoring a Documentary for Al-Jazeera America “Daisy and Max”. This winter she just wrapped the sound-design/score for the debut of Dominique Morisseau’s play “SUNSET BABY” at Philip Seymour Hofman’s award-winning, Labyrinth Theater Company with Mimi o’donnell as Artistic Director.
“Broken Compass” is Amatus’ debut EP. An enticing blend of indie pop hooks, crisp electronic hip-hop beats and hauntingly orchestrated live instrumentation that doesn’t take itself to seriously.