Viral TikTok videos by Portchester drum teacher leads to £4,000 donation to Fareham food bank

The twenty-year-old, who lives in Portchester and works as a steel pan teacher at Titchfield Primary School, found internet fame in December after posting a video of him playing popular songs – by using glasses of water like a xylophone.

Now, he has more than 950,000 followers on his Instagram account and 5.1 million followers on video-sharing app TikTok.

His popular videos have led him to become one of seven winners of an online talent competition, called Living Rooms Got Talent, run by the Yes Theory channel on YouTube.

The talent musician, who began to learn the drums aged five, said: ‘I thought I might as well go for it – there was no reason not to.

‘I was shocked and very happy when I won – it was a weird feeling really.

‘Music has always been something to I wanted to pursue, I just never knew how to go about it.

‘TikTok helped me gain some traction.’

A condition of the prize money is that half must be donated to a charitable cause – and Finli has sent his half to Fareham-based Acts of Kindess, which is running a food bank delivery service across the borough.

The charity took over the supply chains of The Fareham and Gosport Basics Bank at the end of March and has now delivered more than 1,800 food parcels.

Found Kerry Snuggs said: ‘It’s very humbling to have been chosen.

‘It costs about £30 to feed a family – so the donation will feed hundreds of families.’

Finli has been taken on by an artist management company Image Media Ltd and is working on becoming a full-time musician.

He said: ‘I want to release my own music, and I’m using these videos to create a big audience.

‘But people are responding really well to the videos, so if I’m making people happy, I’m happy – especially during Covid-19 with people having to say at home.’

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