Telugu composer Raj of Raj-Koti duo passes away at 68, Koti says he's lost his brother

Telugu film composer Raj, belonging to the iconic music duo Raj-Koti, is no more. The son of veteran music director TV Raju was 68. The musician is believed to have had a bad fall in the bathroom earlier this afternoon and suffered a heart attack immediately out of shock. He had collapsed in the bathroom and didn’t recover later. Though he was taken to hospital later, he was declared dead.

Raj (originally named Thotakura Somaraju) is survived by his wife and three daughters - Deepthi, Divya and Swetha. While Divya is working in the film industry as an assistant director, Swetha has settled in Malaysia. His last rites will be performed at Maha Prasthanam, Hyderabad after Swetha’s arrival tomorrow morning. The composer, prior to his death, stayed with his family in his Kukatpally residence.

Raj-Koti, who worked under composer Chakravarthi, joined forces in 1984, duo had successful careers as a composer duo across multiple industries for over 180 films in 13 years. Some of their biggest hits include Yamudiki Mogudu, Khaidi No 786, Kodama Simham, Muta Mestri, Nippu Ravva, Govinda Govinda, Hello Brother, to name a few. A report suggests they’d worked on over 3000 songs in total.

The duo had groomed some popular musicians of the next generation - AR Rahman, Mani Sharma as well. Raj and Koti parted ways in 1995 though the former tasted only limited success as a solo composer, one of them being Sisindri. He also composed the background score for Venkatesh’s hit Premante Ideraa. Some of Raj’s other solo composer projects were Ramudochadu, Chinni Chinni Aasa, Mrugam.

Expressing shock over Raj’s death, Koti said, “We were having a good chat at an audio function recently. The news has come as a shocker. I heard he wasn’t feeling well. We made a mark as a duo, spent sleepless nights, working for over 20 hours a day and delivered many hits together. Raj-Koti brand is still relevant among music buffs and created a new trend. He will live on forever through his music. We were brothers, childhood friends and I still regret that we parted ways.”