Beyond the Beat: The Spiritual World of Gstickz

The studio smells faintly of warm cables and dusted foam. Evening settles slowly outside, pressing against the tinted windows. Somewhere in Edo, far from the noise of industry chatter, a monitor speaker hums softly before the next idea drops. You're already learning a lot about this place as global stars like Rema & the Uzama brothers continue to make waves. 

And here is Godfrey Agbonifo. He presses his back against the chair and twists his loc, one finger hovering over his laptop. The room is quiet except for the low thud of a kick drum he’s testing. 

He listens like someone waiting for something to answer back.

Godfrey, better known as Gstickz, is not your average music producer. Born on April 27, 2000, and raised in Edo State, he has been building his sound deliberately since 2020. By 2023, his work began speaking louder. Credits on GT Milly’s “Body.” Then “Philo” in 2024. And in 2025, the record that shifted everything, Chella’s “My Darling.” A song that carried his fingerprints so clearly it opened doors to conversations and collaborations with Diamond Platnumz, Zee Nxumalo, Tawsen, and NOT3S.

But if you ask him what makes his sound different, he doesn’t talk about streaming numbers or placements.

He calls his beats “spiritual.”

“It defines the core of where my sounds come from,” he says, leaning back in his chair. “The spirit realm where ideas dwell.”

For him, this is a matter-of-fact. Gstickz thinks production is less about constructing and more about discovering. The studio, in those quiet evening hours, becomes something like a listening post.

Sometimes he walks in with intention. Sometimes he lets the sound find him. It depends on the way the day dictates the sound, he simply admits. 

There is a patience in the way he works, a discipline sharpened over years of growing alongside Chella. Their journey was formative in a lot of ways, he explains, choosing his words carefully, “this includes areas such as patience till the sound is shaped to desire of the artist.”

Patience. Shaping. Desire.

In his world, a beat is not finished when it sounds good. It is finished when it feels inevitable.

When asked about the difference between a beat that sounds good and a beat that moves something, he doesn’t hesitate.

“There’s no difference,” he says. “If it sounds good it has to move something.”

Movement, for him, is not always that loud room-shaking sound. It might be subtle. A bassline that sits just right in the chest. A chord progression that unsettles you in a way you can’t explain. He believes there are messages embedded in sound itself.

“Music is deeper than meets the eye,” he says. “Sounds in my beat are a message. If they continue to listen they might just get the message.”

There are creatives he has worked with that he feels connected to on a deeper level. He doesn’t list names. He just nods slightly, and says, “yes, a few.”

The confidence is there now, but it wasn’t always. Sitting in that dim studio in Edo, far from Lagos spotlights, he carries both ambition and weight.

“I am Me Gsticks,” he says, almost as if rehearsing it to himself. “Full name Godfrey Agbonifo, a young boy from the south set to break barriers in the industry and change the narrative of music with the uniqueness of my sound.”

Then he pauses.

“Sometimes I get scared of this burden bestowed on my heart.”

It’s the first time his voice dips.

“But the prayers of my loved ones keep me going,” he adds. “And I am gonna make it happen.”

Outside, the evening deepens. Inside, another beat begins to form, slow and deliberate. The speakers vibrate gently, like something waking up.

In that quiet studio in Edo, Gstickz is not chasing noise.

He is listening for it.