Amir Amor

Amir Izadkhah (born 23 March 1985), better known by his stage name Amir Amor, is an Iranian–English record producer, musician, singer and songwriter.

In 1992, Amor, his mother and sister arrived in London separated from his father and brothers.

Moving from spare room, to lodge, and at times, to the street.

Unable to communicate in English, Amor and his sister were rejected by many schools.

However, once placed, the lack of school experience that Amor had, spelt a difficult time fitting in, and staying in.

He was often dismissed, preferring to wander and discover the deep corners of London for hours on his own.

Amidst this ample spare time he discovered a cassette player with an accidental function – the ability to overdub.

Experiments in beatboxing over tracks began.

Soon, his family was partially reunited and Amor's father and one brother rejoined the family.

They were finally able to find their first home together.

First in Ladbroke Grove, and then in Somers Town, with Amor beginning his educational trials at Gladstone Park, St Peters, and Edith Neville.

With the family mostly together again, a roof over their heads, and a sense of stability emerging – Amir finally began to feel a sense of settling in.

Learning to call Camden his stomping ground, and staying enrolled at his graduating school, Haverstock.

Here, his growing community began to introduce him to a new culture – of hip hop, graffiti, pirate radio stations, and their potential.

Amor learnt how to graffiti, latched onto pirate radio setups, honed in on record stores and quickly amassed a worthy cassette collection of hip hop, funk, soul, alternative rock and electronic music.

Then at 14, a chance encounter with a music production software demo without a save function resulted in his first ever (accidentally) recorded production, "Jaws", a garage track that soon spread around his school and ended up selling a cassette.

Soon after, driven by the potential, and his habit of discovery, Amor found himself inching into recording studios around Camden.

Befriending staff and trying to satiate his widening curiosity.

It was then when he found Tribal Tree, a studio and youth club teaching music skills to disadvantaged kids.

Their quota was full, but stubbornly hanging around landed him a space and the laying down of a foundation of skills.

At this course, he learnt how to program beats – and heard of the idea that you could actually make a living from creating music.

In these classes, recent graduate Plan B taught him his first chords, and program founder Kevin Osbourne lent him keys to his studio after hours.

He soon ended up as a tutor at the youth club himself.

During the late nights in Osbourne's studio, Amor wrote and produced a demo EP, and on the suggestion of Osbourne, sent it into a songwriting competition run by The Prince's Trust.

Amir won the competition and used the £2500 to buy his first computer, and although he didn't yet know how to play them, a guitar and bass.

With these, he would listen to Parliament-Funkadelic and Jimi Hendrix day in and day out, playing the bass lines and teaching himself the guitar.

Amor partners up with Plan B to produce his first album, Paint It Blacker: The Bootleg Album.

A series of tracks of hip hop beats covering the likes of The Rolling Stones, Leonard Cohen and Radiohead.

Amor's sensibility of merging live sounds with the electronic begins to solidify – and with this, Plan B gets signed to 679 Records, and Amor begins to get hired as a beat maker – programming for other producers across Europe.

He also begins touring as a session musician with a post-hardcore rock band, and in another as a bass player with live electronics.

Plan B hires him again to score his first short film, Michelle.

It is during this time that Amor reunites with his brother who stayed in Iran, Shahrokh Izadkhah, and finds an incredible alignment of interests.

Shahrokh also happened to be a musician and guitarist, and co-founded the influential Persian rock band O-Hum.

From 2011 to 2022, he was a member of the drum and bass band Rudimental.

Amor is the founder of London record label and recording studio Major Tom's. His production and writing credits include Sam Smith, Ed Sheeran, Charli XCX, Maxïmo Park, Peace, Yuck, Marina and the Diamonds, Wretch 32, Angel Haze and MNEK amongst many others.

Through his work with Rudimental, he has won the 2014 Brit Award for Best Single of the Year, the Mobo Award for Best Album, and has achieved multiple platinum awards for record sales in multiple countries.

Amor was tipped as the "number one new producer to watch" by The Guardian, and listed by NME magazine as one of the "20 hottest producers in music right now".

Some of the other names on the bill were Paul Epworth, Mark Ronson, Dr. Luke and Rick Rubin.

Amor began life amidst the Iran–Iraq War in Tehran, Iran.

The son of an air force Colonel and a high school science teacher, he spent his early years unable to enroll into school and escaping to shelters amidst regular bomb raids.