A.R.Rahuman- The Musician

Biography for
A.R. Rahman

Birth name
A.S. Dileep Kumar
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Nickname
The Mozart of Madras
Isai Puyal
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Mini biography
Allah Rakha Rahman was born A.S. Dileep Kumar on January 6, 1966, in Madras (now Chennai), India, to a musically affluent family. Dileep started learning the piano at the age of 4, and at the age of 9, his father passed away. Since the pressure of supporting his family fell on him, he joined Ilayaraja's troupe as a keyboard player at the age of 11. He dropped out of school as a result of this and traveled all around the world with various orchestras.

He accompanied the great tabla maestro Zakir Hussain on a few world tours and also won a scholarship at the Trinity College of Music at Oxford University, where he studied Western classical music and obtained a degree in music. Due to some personal crisis, Dileep Kumar embraced Islam and came to be known as A.R. Rahman. In 1987, he moved to advertising, where he composed more than 300 jingles over 5 years. In 1989, he started a small studio called Panchathan Record Inn, which later developed into one of the most well-equipped and advanced sound recording studios in India.

At an advertising awards function, Rahman met one of India's most famous directors, Mani Ratnam. Rahman played him a few of his music samples. Mani loved them so much that he asked Rahman to compose the music for his next film, Roja (1992). The rest, as they say, is history. He went on to compose several great hits for Tamil-language films before composing the score and songs for his first Hindi-language film, Rangeela (1995). The enormous success of his first Hindi venture was followed by the chart-topping soundtrack albums of films such as Albeli Mumbai (1931) , Dil Se.. (1998), Taal (1999), Zubeidaa (2001), and Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India (2001), which was nominated for best foreign-language film at the 2002 Academy Awards.

More recently, he worked with Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber and Shekhar Kapur (director of Elizabeth (1998)) on a musical called "Bombay Dreams." At 36 years old, A.R. Rahman has revolutionized Indian film music and one can only expect this musical genius to reach greater heights.

How ya doing, buddy?

Oooo, I saw a poster for Bombay Dreams on the train a while ago. Seems pretty interesting. But, does he only do India music? I mean, I don't watch Indian movies so I don't know what kind of music he does. =\

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Yes, this is all nice, but since you've provided a synopsis of his life story already, what are we actually discussing?

Most people in the Western world have barely even heard of A.R. Rahuman.

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Among the few Indians who are taking Indian music to an international level is A R Rahman. On Sunday, Rahman performed at the Hollywood Bowl, one of the largest natural amphitheaters in the world, with a current seating capacity of just under 18,000. Generally, Indian artistes attract NRI audiences or people other from Asia countries, but this time Rahman pulled in many Americans too. In fact, it was the Americans who formed majority of the audiences for the show.

The show titled 'Bollywood Night with AR Rahman' had doses of Bollywood movie clips, with guest artistes and of course dances. The song which rocked the evening was 'Chaiyya Chaiyya' performed by Sukhwinder Singh. Other performers at the show were Hariharan, Sadhana Sargam and Madhushree.

Reportedly, people from Warner Bros., Fox, and Universal Studios were also present at the concert and were highly impressed. It is even said that they are thinking of adding a Bollywood touch to Oscars next year.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

The music in Lagaan and Taal is definitely quite good, although I haven't watched any of his other movies.

I get Radha Kaise Na Jale stuck in my head a lot, but the lyrics in my head are horribly skewed ;_;

I was speaking idiomatically.

Quote:

the song which rocked the evening was 'Chaiyya Chaiyya' performed by Sukhwinder Singh.

'Chaiyya Chaiyya' is overated. 'Dil Se' from the same film is his best work. period.

How ya doing, buddy?

ha-nuel, something tells me this is a veiled attempt at advertising without breaking any of the rules against spam.

All this seems to be generic, copy-pasted information that could've been obtained anywhere. There's nothing personal at all about your comments; you just dispense some quasi-random factoids, then leave.

Unless you reply to this thread in a manner that doesn't come off as being completely robotic, I'm going to assume this is thinly-disguised advertising and close this thread in 48 hours. That's ample time for you to defend yourself.

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Originally Posted by Syphex

'Chaiyya Chaiyya' is overated. 'Dil Se' from the same film is his best work. period.

just you hear the songs of movie Bombay, Roja. These films made a record in the Indian history. Roja is the Rahman's first film....

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

I started listening to Rahman's compositions after hearing my friend sent me Dil Se Re from Dil Se. He's a great composer--although his songs are usually made or broken by the playback singer. Dil Se has a consistently good soundtrack and Bombay and Taal are good as well. I like some of the stuff from Rangeela (I actually like the song Rangeela Re in Tamil better than the Hindi version).

Crash is so meann, I remember when he was new here and always oh so charmingg... but, yeah, ha-neul... give some context for discussion next time. Biographies don't necessarily lend themselves towards that.

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