Kenilworth teacher's meteoric rise in the music scene is the stuff dreams are made of

A former school teacher from Kenilworth, who turned his hand to interviewing Asian music artists and singing with them online during lockdown, has now become an award-winning rising star of the industry in just 18 months.

Amit Bagga, a former Kenilworth School pupil, was the assistant head of maths at Bishops Ullathorne School in Coventry before he launched a show on Instagram under his stage name Rio Jai.

An aspiring musician since the age of eight, Rio made a highlight of the chat show a 'sing off' with the stars of the Asian music scene who were the guests he had been interviewing.

The show was very popular but only five episodes were made because the management of his fifth and final guest Tasha Tah were so impressed with Rio's signing performance that they signed him to a record deal with London Kings Records shortly after.

Rio, who describes his musical style as 'Urban Asian Pop', said: "Within two weeks of the show with Tasha I was down in London doing a 14-hour video shoot with her for my first single.

"None of my family or friends knew what I was doing so when the song and video came out they were really shocked.

"I went from being a fan to becoming a mainstream artist almost overnight."

Rio's song featuring Tasha, Aaja Soniye, became a smash hit and he followed it up with success with the other releases Body on Me and Don't Disconnect the Call - the videos for which have amassed millions of views on Youtube alone.

Off of the back of this success, Rio has been invited by Warner Bros to walk the red carpet with stars at film premiers and has become friends with pop singer Peter Andre.

And an incredible 2021 was topped off for Rio when he won a British Asian Music Industry Award for being the best Breakthrough Act in December.

Rio said: "It's fair to say I've come a long way in the past 18 months

"I now having the same level of success as the people I was once interviewing.

"I've had such a huge amount of love, support and loyalty from fans, family, friends and people in the industry to help me to have come this far in such a short space of time and I'm so thankful for that."

Follow Rio's instagram account at http://instagram.com/theriojai