Amaeshi, Okwarachukwu Ikechi (popularly known as Amaeshi) is a Nigerian bassist and composer born to a Christian family of four children, being the youngest member of the family. His siblings were actively involved in church music so it wasn’t strange for him to have picked up an interest in music. But it became more evident that it was more than just an interest when almost everything around him became a musical instrument and he would soon start to lobby his way into the church band and become a part of the school band and various cultural groups as a percussionist.
At the age of 13, he got the opportunity to see for the first time western musical instruments such as the piano, bass, guitar and drums in a local church and that aroused his curiosity. Unfortunately, he didn’t qualify for the church scholarship to learn one of the instruments because he was relatively younger to the other children. Most of the kids opted to learn instruments other than the bass guitar and this caught his attention and that was the beginning of the quest for the knowledge of the instrument. With the help of friends who could share their little knowledge about the bass guitar, he started figuring it out on his own. The story is endless from this point, but it was surely a young man’s quest after his “inner soul and fulfillment”. His bass guitar influences internationally are John Patittucci, Jaco Pastorius, Richard Bona, and Tom Kennedy.