Mateus Asato, perhaps social media's biggest breakout guitar star, has removed his Instagram account and announced a break from music, due to the “overwhelming” pressures of social media and loss of inspiration due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a statement shared over the weekend via his now-deleted account – which he had temporarily renamed @brb – the 27-year-old virtuoso admitted he hasn't “played guitar for 3 weeks.”
“I honestly don't remember staying away from my source of creation for so long,” he said. “This feels very weird because I don't even feel the excitement of grabbing my guitar to enjoy the goodness and blessings that music creates on us artistically.”
He continued, “I honestly didn't want to blame [it] on the pandemic but I got in a point where my inspiration simply disappeared.”
Addressing his break from Instagram in a follow-up story, the guitarist wrote, “I am [concluding] my relationship with social media in general. IG is a place where I will be forever thankful in terms of my career (I’ve met my biggest heroes and had the coolest opportunities through IG) – but I’m sincerely overwhelmed.
“Instagram helped musicians to get better at business, at making flawless-performance videos (after uncountable takes),” he continued. “I got lost inside the boxes of the 15s-60s videos.
“I have a big feeling that we are losing the essence of [musical] interaction, establishing patterns based on the same 4 bars chord progressions to start the vibe. Anyways. Sorry if this offends any community related to music. It’s time for a break. I’ll be back soon, hopefully.”
In recent years, Asato established himself as the face of the Instagram guitar sphere, amassing over one-million followers and leading Forbes to proclaim he was "changing the guitar forever".
His one-minute six-string soundbites helped amass him a legion of over one million followers, and earned him spots playing with Tori Kelly and Renforshort, for whom he contributed a searing solo for her cover of the Gorillaz' Feel Good Inc.
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