Tajik Jimmy is the new Susan Boyle

Forget Susan Boyle. "Tajik Jimmy" is the new viral star of the Internet. Jimmy’s story is so unbelievable that it could easily become the next Hollywood/Bollywood hit like Slumdog Millionaire! The fact that Tajik Jimmy’s rise to fame coincides with the rise of anti-Tajik feelings in Russia makes it even more fascinating:

Baimurat Allaberiyev, a diminutive native of Tajikistan who has herded sheep, picked cotton and toiled in construction, hardly looks like Russia’s latest musical sensation.

But Allaberiyev has remarkable talent sets him apart from the millions of Central Asians who come to Russia to escape crushing poverty at home.

A musical prodigy, he can perform Bollywood show-stoppers as a one-man band, equipped with nothing but an uncanny falsetto and a metal bucket.

That — and the miraculous star-making powers of the Internet — have turned this 37-year-old into a cult celebrity here.

Allaberiyev won fame after shaky videos shot with mobile phones surfaced on the Internet that showed him performing songs like "Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy Aaja" from the 1983 Bollywood classic "Disco Dancer".

Set against grim backdrops like a construction site or a storeroom full of boxes, the videos became a viral sensation. They have now been viewed more than 400,000 times on YouTube, the movie-sharing website.

Allaberiyev — who is widely known as "Tajik Jimmy" despite the fact that he is actually an ethnic Uzbek — now has a record deal and has given concerts in Moscow and Saint Petersburg.

His success is striking given that Central Asians suffer widespread discrimination in Russia and are often targeted in racist attacks.

…But fame has led to surreal changes for Allaberiyev, who has been compared to Susan Boyle, the middle-aged Scottish woman who soared to fame when her audition on "Britain’s Got Talent" became a smash hit on YouTube.

Allaberiyev spoke to AFP the same day he was filmed by a television crew and visited by a local newspaper photographer.

He recalled how his talents were noticed after he arrived in Russia in 2008 to build the Rio shopping centre, toiling side by side with labourers from across the former Soviet Union.

"When I worked on the construction site, I used to sing songs to myself. Then all the guys — Russians, Uzbeks, Tajiks — would come up and film me," said Allaberiyev, who looks much older than his 37 years.

"And they’d say, Jimmy, now we’re going to put that on the Internet. And it got on the Internet and lots of people downloaded my songs and heard them…. And that’s how I became a star."

Check out one of those grainy videos shot at what I think is Jimmy’s construction site.

Fascinating, no?