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R RAHMAN
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Put simply, A.R.Rahman is a phenomenon. Having successfully staked his claim as India’s greatest ambassador in the world of music, Rahman has now sold well in excess of 100 million albums worldwide. To put that in perspective, that’s as many albums as Madonna and Britney Spears put together and it places him firmly in Michael Jackson territory, an artist, incidentally, that Rahman has composed and performed with: Jackson was recently photographed wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with a picture of Rahman and the message “Salute To You”. Tandemically, glancing at the amount of prizes his extraordinary talent has garnered you’d be forgiven for thinking his house was entirely made up of shelves just to showcase them: in 1992 at the age of just 24 and for the film ‘Roja’ he received the “National Award for Best Music Direction” - an award he then duplicated five years later for ‘Minsara Kanavu’’ ; in years ‘92, ‘93 & ‘94 he was awarded the ‘Telegu Purashkar Award’ by the Governor of Tamil Nadu; in ‘92, 93, ‘94 and ‘95 he received the State Award; and for the year 1992 and every year since up until the present day he has been awarded the Filmfare Award. Others such as the Cinema Express Award, the Nagi Reddy Award, the Rajiv Gandhi Award and the Screen Award (for the albums ‘Vande Mataram’ and ‘Taal’) followed and, at the turn of the century, to crown and acknowledge his unique contribution to Indian culture, Rahman was awarded the highest civilian honour of Padma Shree by the President of India. And now, as I write this, AR Rahman has won Best Music for the film Lagaan at the 47th Annual Manikchand Filmfare Awards in Bombay, whilst the film itself has been shortlisted for an Oscar this year in the Best Foreign Language Film category.
Rahman’s forays into film particularly with Mani Ratnam’s excellent ‘Roja’, ‘Bombay’ and ‘Dil Se’ have naturally placed him at the forefront of the Hindi film industry where he is recognised as the finest musical director of his generation. He has composed the soundtracks for over fifty Bollywood movies but, refreshingly, (and this isn’t always the case with the beyond-famous), he is also seen both locally and internationally as someone who is prepared to break conventions in terms of music. The risk-taking, although utterly uncontrived, has paid off and these days producers form queues outside Rahman’s Madras home on the off-chance he’ll agree to work on their next project. Despite the huge success, however, Rahman is deeply modest - shy even - and a devout Muslim who prays five times a day. His humility and piety are paramount as indeed you might gather when he talks about his faith: “The essence of Sufism is about love. Music and Sufism go very well together. Somehow it inspires you to think in a divine way rather than just think “I’ll do this song”. For me, the next stage of everything is completely unknown. I am almost like a boat on a river without a sail and I keep going. I’m surprised when good things happen and I’m cool when something bad happens. I trust God and it helps me to get rid of unnecessary things like jealousy, and greed and all this stuff. I’m not fully out of it. But I am trying. It makes me like oil on water, I’m there and not there and I’m not sticking to anything.”
Rahman was and always will be a prodigy. He has a degree in Western Classical Music and his late father RK Shekar, who died when Rahman was eleven years old, was an internationally-renowned composer who worked on numerous Malayalam films. Rahman’s elder sister Raihana recalls her little brother “coming up with great ideas for dad.” He was 100% dedicated to music even then and played no games, nor ideed had any outside friends. These days Rahman still works through the night and sleeps through the day. “It is barely 30 seconds walk from my studio to the family,’” he says. “I work in the ground floor studio and my family which comprises my mother, three sisters, wife and two little daughters, live upstairs. I work through the night so that I can escape from disturbing phone calls and other distractions.” It is possibly for this reason that Rahman’s compositions are so uniquely characterized, that such prolonged periods of intense, undisturbed concentration have enabled him to stumble across an utterly distinct combination of contemporary sounds and traditional Eastern rhythms and melodies. And it is this combination that has brought Rahman - already a superstar in the East - to the attention of a significant audience in the West.
It should come as little surprise that when composer/producer Andrew Lloyd Webber hit upon the quite brilliant idea for a Bollywood musical he should look no further than A.R. Rahman as a collaborator. Lloyd Webber sought an introduction with Rahman through Associate Producer Shekhar Kapur, maintaining that Rahman was “the most extraordinary melodic composer who is still true to his cultural roots and deserves to be heard by an international audience.” International sell-out concerts in Los Angeles, New York and London might suggest that he already has that audience but it is certainly true to say that a London West End stage offers a different kind of challenge. The musical is to be called A. R. Rahman’s Bombay Dreams and for his part, Rahman comments: “I am very excited, naturally. Bombay Dreams will be a big opportunity for me and I believe it will introduce a western audience to the richness of Indian music.” The show also features choreography by Bollywood movie legend Farah Khan together with the writing talents of Meera Syal and long-standing Lloyd Webber-collaborator and lyricist Don Black. It is to be directed by Steven Pimlott.
Rahman has chosen to record most of the score for Bombay Dreams at the Strongroom in east London where he has teamed up with Massive Attack production team Marius De Vries and Andy Bradfield. In recent years and together with Bradfield, producer/songwriter De Vries has remixed Bjork and De La Soul, Coldcut and the Drum Club as well as co-produced Madonna’s Ray Of Light and the hugely successful Moulin Rouge soundtrack. Influences as eccentric and eclectic as these have surely had a profound effect on the recording of Bombay Dreams and the comparatively claustrophobic surrounds of the Strongroom make for an intensely atmospheric sound. The results, which will appear on the Bombay Dreams album (due for release on Sony Records and in June to coincide with the show’s opening), are not a million miles away from the Asian-influenced indie/electronica sounds of Black Star Liner, a band who (along with Asian Dub Foundation) currently front (what is commonly monickered) ‘the British Hindu-Homeboy Explosion’. Of course, Bombay Dreams itself, is much more than this image suggests, it is a show after all, with all the urgency and vibrancy that that spectacle demands. One thing’s for certain though - Rahman has ensured that Bombay Dreams will feature tunes of such rare depth that you’ll have encountered nothing of comparable quality on a West End stage.in the last twenty years.
A.R. Rahman’s Bombay
Dreams opens at the Apollo Victoria on June 19th.
For more information on A.R. Rahman please contact
Phill Savidge 0208 348 0373
email
phill
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