By Anurag Pandit
Google his name and 20,000,000 results pop up in just 0.36 seconds. He has 15959131 likes on his Facebook page. He’s the only celebrity who’s being followed by 3,470,492 people on Twitter and follows none himself. Born as A.S. Dileep Kumar, this man has taken the world by storm with his music. So much so that he was described as the world’s most prominent and prolific film composer by Time. Still haven’t recognized him? I’m talking about A.R Rahman.
It was his birthday this month (6th January) so we at Economy Decoded thought we should tell you the things that made the man into a legend. Rahman has been putting his soul into music for the last 20 years now (the phrase composing music doesn’t really suit him)! He started with Panchathan Record Inn, a music recording and mixing studio attached to the backyard of his house. Now it’s the most advanced recording studio in the country with super fancy equipment.
It was in 1992 that Rahman got his first Kollywood (Tamil Film Industry) assignment known as Roja. The soundtrack of Roja is among the “10 Best Soundtracks” of all time listed by TIME magazine. If Rahman made a grand entry by winning a National Film Award for Best Music Direction, a Filmfare Award for Best Music Director -Tamil and the Tamil Nadu State Film Award for Best Music Director for his work in his debut film. Roja became the first most important thing of Rahman’s career.
A.R Rahman’s biggest critics are his wife and mother. He got married to Saira Banu at the age of 27 and has three daughters (Khatija, Rahima and Ameen) and a son (Khwaja Mohammad Roo mi Rahman). All of Rahman’s daughters are interested in music and two of them have given their voice for film songs as well. Ameen has sung for ‘Couples Retreat’ while Khatija has sung for ‘Enthiran’. Rahmans says that whatever he is today is because of his parents’ prayers to God.
With ‘Vande Mataram’, Rahman became the first Indian artiste to go international when it was released simultaneously in 28 countries across the world under the prestigious Columbia Label of Sony Music on August 15th, 1997. The album was a mega success and sold over 1.5 million copies in India alone, and did extremely well internationally too, becoming the largest selling Indian non-film album internationally. The second big step in his international career came when he made music for Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire. It won him an Academy Award, the first to be won by an Indian.
Between Roja and his upcoming movie Highway, A.R.Rahman has come a long way and has enslaved entire countries to his music. Besides being an awesome musician he is also known to be a very humble and down to earth man-which only adds to his fame! Ladies and Gentlemen, though this has been said a million times for him, we are still bound to repeat the phrase-Look out for this artist because we guarantee that he will not fail to surprise you with his soulful-ever changing-always awesome-music!
