Rio Sterling arrives with the kind of voice that feels older than its owner. The 19-year-old Croydon artist is part of a new South London generation raised on classic soul, church harmony and contemporary pop spectacle. Having studied at Access Creative College, he now performs with a nine-piece band drawn from BRIT School and ELAM alumni, favouring a live, analogue-leaning sound in an era dominated by digital minimalism. He spent the summer touring with RAYE as part of her Flames Collective choir, an apprenticeship in modern pop’s upper tiers, where discipline and vulnerability meet arena-scale production. His debut single, POV, leans into soul-pop melodrama, pairing buoyant arrangements with a confessional lyric that treats apology and young love with theatrical sincerity. On stage, Sterling leans into a tradition of British soul revivalists who refuse to shrink themselves for playlists. Backed by horns, keys and a rhythm section that nods to vintage soul while remaining unapologetically pop, his live show is built around voice first: elastic, pleading and emotionally direct. If POV is an introduction, it is also a mission statement—an artist reaching backwards to move forwards, insisting that feeling still belongs at the centre of pop. With a live-first ethos and a pop sensibility shaped by London’s music education pipeline, Sterling signals a generation keen to make spectacle intimate again.