Actor Riz Ahmed is set to perform the lead in coming film Mughal Mowgli, a drama about a British-Pakistani rapper whose big break is derailed by serious disease.

Ahmed, 36, has a lot of first-hand experience of the music field. A fixture of the London hip-hop scene, he launched his debut solo album in 2011 before forming the well-known duo Swet Shop Boys in 2014. Swet Shop Boys released a highly acclaimed album in 2016 and performed at Glastonbury and Coachella.

Ahmed, who got an Emmy in 2017 for his part in American series The Night Of, has co-written Mughal Mowgli and will produce the film in collaboration with Pulse Films. Mughal Mowgli is to be directed by acclaimed documentary maker Bassam Tariq, whose Ghosts of Sugar Land got the non-fiction short film award at the Sundance Film Festival and was subsequently acquired by Netflix.

“I’m excited to be finally be working on a feature with my friends at Pulse Films and my co-conspirator Bassam Tariq,” Ahmed said. “We are setting out to do something different , and do it in a bold way.”

The CEO of Pulse Films, Thomas Benski, said: “Collaborating with Bassam and Riz on Mughal Mowgli goes to the heart of our studio’s ethos, to tell human stories that capture moments of culture.