Allah Rakha Rahman (born January 6, 1967 as A.S. Dileep Kumar in
Chennai, India) is a popular Indian film music composer. He made
his debut with Mani Ratnam's movie, Roja (Rose) (1992) in Tamil and
RamGopal Verma's movie Rangeela (Colourful) (1995) in Hindi.
Rahman is the only son of R. K. Sekhar, who was an arranger and
conductor for Malayalam films. His father died when Rahman was nine
years old and his family used to rent out the musical equipment to
make ends meet. At the age of 11, Rahman joined the troupe of
Indian composer Ilayaraja as a keyboard player. He later played on
the orchestra of M.S. Vishwanathan and Ramesh Nadu, and accompanied
Zakir Hussain and Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan on world tours. The
experience allowed him to obtain a scholarship to the Trinity
College of Music at Oxford University, where he received a degree
in Western Classical Music.
In 1989, Rahman began his own studio (which was attached to his
house), called the Panchathan Record Inn. He initially composed
music for use in advertisements, the title music on popular Indian
television channels, and in documentaries, among other projects.
Rahman was, at first, hesitant about composing music for the Indian
film industry primarily because most film makers at the time used
songs as "fillers" or a means by which the audience was given a
break from the movie's plot. In 1991 he was approached by film
director Mani Ratnam, who offered Rahman the job as composer of
music for his upcoming film Roja, at a price of Rs. 25,000. Rahman
accepted, and the movie's superhit debut made him a household name
in Tamil Nadu virtually overnight and led Rahman to receive the
Rajat Kamal award for best music director at the Indian National
Film Awards, the first time ever by a debutant. Rahman has since
then gone on to win the award 3 more times (for Minsaara Kanavu in
1997, Lagaan in 2002 and Kannathil Muthamittal in 2003) the most
ever by any composer.
A.R. Rahman combined the usage of technology and music. However,
this usage of technology in music is sometimes dubbed as excessive
and injurious by other music composers. But lately, Rahman has been
successful in transcending such criticisms by creating his own
style of composition by a symbiosis of the best elements of
technology and the Indian classical instruments.
When Rahman arrived onto the Indian music scene with his first film
Roja (1992), the music industry in India was going through a crisis
with the retirement of older music composers and the lack of
innovation in Indian film music. Roja was a massive hit, and Rahman
followed it up with a number of other extremely popular films,
including Bombay, Dil Se and Rangeela. The huge sales of these
albums prompted movie producers to take film music more seriously.
Today, Rahman is widely considered as the man who single-handedly
revived public interest in Indian film songs in the 90's. The main
reason why his songs were so popular was because everyone liked
westernized Indian music.
Rahman's work is also unique in the fact that his collaborations
with a few movie directors have always resulted in hugely
successful albums. In particular, he has worked with Mani Ratnam on
eight movies (until 2004) (see list of movies by Mani Ratnam
featuring A R Rahman), all of which have been musical superhits.
Also notable is his collaboration with the director Shankar
(Gentleman, Kadhalan, Indian, Mudhalvan, Jeans and Boys).
Missing image
Arr-weber.jpg
Lord Lloyd-Webber with A.R. RahmanHe made an album Vande Mataram
(1996) on India's national song. Recently, he also came up with an
album called Jana gana mana, a huge conglomeration of performances
by all the leading exponents/artists of Indian classical
music.
Lord Lloyd-Webber, a well known composer of musicals, was impressed
with Rahman's unique style and therefore hired him to compose his
maiden stage production Bombay Dreams (2002). This play was well
received in England and opened him up to new vistas in Hollywood.
Currently (as of May 2004) Rahman, along with the Finnish folk
music band Toronto in March 2006.
Rahman received more international attention with this article
(http://www.time.com/time/columnist/corliss/article/0,9565,1013198-1,00.html)
in the [TIME] magazine.
