Wednesday, July 01, 2009

J105 - Mozart of Madras

Allah Rakha Rahman (A. R. Rahman) is definitely a name we have to know. Time magazine has ranked him under the Top 100 ‘World’s Most Influential People’ this year. For those who haven’t heard of him before, who exactly is he?




A. R. Rahman is an Indian film composer, musician and singer. He has produced several scores and soundtracks for many Indian films, as well as for international cinemas and theatres. More than 100 million of his records have been sold worldwide, placing him under one of the world’s top-selling artistes.

Being highly skilled and talented in music, he is able to compose music with unique styles, combining a wide variety of musical elements and instrumentation. One of his recent works is composing the soundtrack for ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, which has own two Academy Awards for Original Music.

This is the song ‘Jai Ho’ in the movie, which has won the Best Original Song.




Being the most influential musicians worldwide, did you know that he has also left a bit of trail in the Mandarin music?

He is the original composer for this Tamil-translated song ‘Shakalaka Baby’, sang by Kelly Poon. We know the mandarin version well, but how about the original version?




Do you remember this movie ‘Warriors of Heaven and Earth’ (天地英雄), starring Vicky Zhao, in 2003?



Yes, A. R. Rahman was in charge of producing the soundtracks in this Chinese movie. The music combined China, India, Turkey and Western orchestral styles. A unique integration indeed. The Chinese-version theme song ‘海市蜃楼’was sung by Jolin Tsai. Enjoy.




For those interested, you can further visit his official site and listen to some preview tracks at:

http://www.arrahman.com/v2/

Hopefully this entry will make you more familiar with the greatest composer in India.

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