From Port Harcourt, Destarr Releases Gimme! Amapiano! (Remastered), a Nigerian Voice on a South African Groove
The Teenage Rapper Puts a Port Harcourt Delivery on Amapiano Log Drums in Two Versions
Port Harcourt, the Garden City of the Niger Delta, has a habit of sending voices out into the wider world. One of the newest is Destarr, and his single Gimme Amapiano carries the city into a sound that started in South Africa. The teenage rapper and singer, whose family roots are in Edo State, released the remastered version on 16 March 2026.
Destarr’s music is in the playlist below, filed with this desk’s Afrobeat, Afro-pop and amapiano picks, and his coverage is collected on the Destarr artist profile. Gimme! Amapiano! (Remastered) reached AfroMusic.News through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news titles. Hear it once, then keep reading.
Port Harcourt Produced Burna Boy and Duncan Mighty, and Now Destarr Brings Gimme Amapiano Out of It
The record sits at a crossroads that the city knows well. Nigerian pop has spent the last few years absorbing amapiano, the township house style built on the log drum, and the title says exactly what Destarr wanted from it.
In fact, Port Harcourt has given Nigerian music some of its biggest names. Burna Boy was born there, and Duncan Mighty has built a career around his Port Harcourt identity. Burna Boy calls his blend of Afrobeats, dancehall and reggae Afro-fusion, and that habit of mixing styles runs through the city’s music. Destarr and Gimme Amapiano belong to the next chapter of that story.
A Phone Studio App, a Friend Called lilT-x and the Earlier Name Double E deStarr Shaped the Start
Destarr’s own start was far smaller and far more modern. According to his own biography, he was freestyling at the age of three, but he was shy about sharing it. Later, at school, he made songs with his classmates, and he performed at church, at school and at local venues.
The tools, however, came through a friend. His friend lilT-x introduced him to Voloco, a phone studio app. Together they later moved on to BandLab, where they built up a stack of tracks on their own. His first release, Busy at 4AM, came out under his earlier name, Double E deStarr, and in 2024 it returned as a remix with lilT-x and Toon.
That is the scene behind Gimme Amapiano: not a studio complex, but a Port Harcourt teenager and his friends learning production on phones and free software. Then they put their songs on the same streaming services as everyone else. In August 2025 he came back as Destarr with This Life, a single about how life felt for him as a young artist.
What Port Harcourt Put Into Gimme Amapiano, a Nigerian Delivery Over a South African Log Drum
Amapiano grew out of South Africa’s townships in the mid-2010s. Its log drum, a deep and bouncing bass line, became one of the most recognisable sounds in African dance music. Nigerian artists, in turn, picked it up quickly. Asake and his 2022 single Amapiano, featuring Olamide, made the crossover explicit, and the style has stayed in Nigerian pop ever since.
On Gimme Amapiano, Destarr takes that exchange and puts a Port Harcourt voice in the middle of it. The track blends Nigerian vocal styling with amapiano’s rhythm, setting a high-energy delivery over log-drum bass. The title doubles as a request: the artist asking for the groove itself.
The single comes in two versions, and the 2026 credit is shared between Destarr and Paramedia Nation. The original runs to just over three minutes, while the sped-up edit cuts it to under two minutes and 40 seconds. Sped-up versions have become a standard part of releases built for short-form video. In other words, the pairing shows a young artist thinking about how listeners actually find songs now.
Who Gimme Amapiano by Destarr Suits, and Where to Stream the Single and Follow the Artist
The run since then has kept moving. WHO I AM arrived in December 2025 with an official video, and Move Faster followed in July 2026. A live version of This Life then came out on Spotify in August 2026, a year after the original.
So who is the single for? First, listeners following how amapiano has travelled from South Africa into Nigerian pop. Second, fans of the Port Harcourt lineage who want to hear what the next generation is making. Finally, it suits anyone curious about a young independent artist building a catalogue from a phone upward.
From the AfroMusic.News curator team: “Gimme Amapiano is a Port Harcourt record in a South African coat. The sped-up edit is the tell: this is a teenager who knows exactly where his listeners are.”
Hear Gimme Amapiano on every major platform, Audiomack and SoundCloud. Follow Destarr on Spotify, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, X and Facebook, and find his earlier releases as Double E deStarr on Spotify.
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