A.R Rahman

                               Music Composers 

   In the era of 80's and 90's Indian cinema music especially Bollywood was going through its bad phase where old composers like R.D Burman ,Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Kalyanji-Anandji stopped giving music to the films as the requirement of the sound was highly influenced from western genres as a result duo composers like Nadeem-Shravan, Anu Malik took over the era with some hits and majorly flops though Nadeem-Shravan gave some consistent hits like Aashiqui and Dhadkan and many more but still the was lack of melodies and forcing western beats into the arrangements were really very noisy! But in the year 1992 Tamil film Roja got released and ignited some hope amongst the Indians that melodious music is still alive ! The music was exceptional with the current scenario ! The album was a huge hit and people were curious who was the person behind it? When asked to the director of the film Mani Ratnam he said " though the music looks as if a very experienced composer has composed it but there's a young guy who works in his garage turned studio and producing music named A.R Rahman "

Early Life

Extremely introvert and spiritual Rahman started playing keyboards at the age of 4, his father being a renowned  arranger/composer in the south industry took young Rahman to studios for recording sessions. Due to ill health his father died and then he was forced to opt out from the school and earn bread butter for his family Rahman being the smallest kid in the family started renting out instruments to big composers and soon started playing keyboards for them ! Till then it was just the medium of earning bread-butter ,no passion as such. He was more curious and fascinated with machines and technology! Always wanted to become an engineer ! As he grew up he started assisting renowned composers like Ilayaraja and used to compose jingles for ad commercial or documentaries! The schedule was fixed doing work for other in the day and working on the commercials and his own work at night, one fine day he met Mani Ratnam in a party through common friend and Rahman asked him to visit his studio yet never expected Ratnam to actually visit him but after 6 months Ratnam came and went through the tunes which were composed, he picked up 4 tunes which went with the script and the rest is history he wins national award for Roja ! The albums uniqueness is the fusion of Indian Carnatic raaga with western arrangements which easily attracted young audience easily at that I time ! 

Rahman soon got recognition in South industry and did multiple projects ! Ram Gopal Verma asked him to compose for his film called as Rangeela which again got hit and by this Rahman had already stepped into Bollywood! Though he was constantly consistent with good work in the putt with films like Thiruda Thiruda , Romeo , Duet , Gentleman. Rahman followed this with successful scores and songs for Tamil films for the Chennai film industry. The Bombay theme from the film is considered as one of the greatest musical pieces, till then everyone knew that he's a genius ! His work in the film Dil se is exceptional just like his every other album.

Taal was considered as one of the best album of Rahman with great symphonic arrangements and western rhythms yet keeping it very Indian is genius ! He won his second National award for the film Minasara Kanavu.
Followed with some really great scores he did Lagaan and it was the first Indian movie to get nominated for best score 

Oscars!

One day Rahman got a call from  hollywood filmmaker Danny Boyle to score for his next Indo-western venture called Slumdog Millionaire, this movie changed Rahman's life as he won2 Academy awards for this film ,Golden Globe,BAFTA ,Grammy for best original score as well as for song of the year ! He initially planned out to work for the score in 2 months but it took only 20 days to score this movie which was very unusual
The song Jai ho was appreciated and were in top charts in almost every region! The song was initially made for the movie yuvraaj made by Subhash k Jha but because of the filmmaker not wanting it Rahman kept it for another film and this created history as the second Indian to get this award. After this there was no looking back for Rahman various western composers appreciated his work especially Hans Zimmer who is also a great friend and a neighbour to Rahman's L.A studio. Hans stated that he just loved the latika's theme and stated that it is one of his favourite composition of Rahman. Rahman after that did some hollywood movies like 127 hrs which again was nominated for oscars , People like us ,Million dollar Arm, Couple's Retreat, Pele, Muhammad and many more..

Mani Ratnam - A.R Rahman

Rahman calls Mani Ratnam his mentor and big brother it is said that only Mani Ratnam could enter his house without any prior intimation. This duo has given some great films and great music to Indian cinema like very first collaboration that is Roja (1992), Bombay, Saathiya, Yuva, Guru , Raavan , Dil se, Katru Vellyidai (2017) his recent collaboration with Mani Ratnam won him another national award. A great incident Rahman shared in an interview where he was asked how did he came with the tune of Tere Bina , he said earlier there was no situation in the film for that song but one of the song i.e Ay Hairathe had this hook of same tune and i thought that this would create another new song which will be more meledious Ratnam instantly agreed and created a situation for the song and the song was a huge hit ! Another such instance where Ratnam was asked that had he considered someone else in the place of Rahman ? Rahman quickly responds don't give him such bad ideas !

 KM Conservatory 

Rahman always wanted to set a up a music school where students can learn everything related to music under one roof , he successfully plays the principal and founder of K.M Conservatory where he has appointed different teachers and has setup Sunshine orchestra where unprivileged kids free education.

Along with some high honorary awards like Padma Bhushan, Padma Shri he has received Doctorates 
from Anna University, Aligarh University ,Middlesex University, Royal Conservations of Scotland,
Berklee College of Music.
Rahman is a maestro and truly a gem !