Top scorer
The Slumdog soundtrack? AR Rahman "can't tell" Malik Meer how he did it
* Malik Meer
* The Guardian, Saturday 21 February 2009
* Article history
A R Rahman ... Slumdog Millionaire composer. Photograph: PR
The
"Mozart of Madras", "an Indian Timbaland", "the world's greatest living
composer": Bafta winner and Oscar contender AR Rahman has been called
many things over the years. Here's another: the king of cheese. "Ha
ha!" laughs the man behind the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack. "I've
read worse descriptions on the blogs." When the Guide catches up with
Rahman the day after his Bafta win, he tries to convince us that his
favourite film score is Vangelis's synth soundbed for Cambridge
athletes. "I was with Alexandre [Desplat] and Hans [Zimmer] and some
other composers and they were naming their favourite soundtracks," he
begins. "They were referencing things like The Mission ... and I said
Chariots Of Fire. Ha ha! Everyone turned around and looked at me in
horror! Why? It was a new world of sound for me, it had a huge impact.
I know it's cheesy elevator music now, though."
1. Slumdog Millionaire
2. Release: 2008
3. Country: UK
4. Cert (UK): 15
5. Runtime: 120 mins
6. Directors: Danny Boyle, Loveleen Tandan
7. Cast: Amil Kapoor, Anil Kapoor, Azharudin Mohammed Ismail, Dev
Patel, Freida Pinto, Irrfan Khan, Madhur Mittal, Rubina Ali
8. More on this film
Rahman grew up in a musical family (his father was the famous Tamil
composer RK Shekhar), and he wrote ad jingles before turning his hand
to film scores. He cites Freddie Mercury and Michael Jackson as his
favourite pop stars and Jim Reeves and Tijuana Brass as the first
western music he ever heard.
Best known for rewriting the
Indian film score rulebook, his first soundtrack, Roja in 1992, swapped
the traditional arrangements of "tabla, dholak and screeching violins"
for sweet, sparse, pop melodies. Since then he's written around 130
Bollywood film scores and sold in excess of 200m albums worldwide. His
compositions and collaborations have been heard in the Bombay Dreams
and Lord Of The Rings stage musicals and films such as Shekhar Kapur's
Elizabeth: The Golden Age, and been raved about by everyone from
Slumdog partner in crime MIA to Andrew Lloyd Webber (but don't hold
that against him). Which is why he was the obvious choice when Danny
Boyle was looking for something "different and loud" for his movie.
Ask
Rahman the secret to his success and he shrugs. As a Muslim convert
inspired by Sufism, he equates the creative process to a spiritual
intervention. "I can't tell you how I write," he says, "I get the music
from a consciousness - it just comes to me and you have to give that
back to the people."
Next up, he's working on the soundtrack to
Blue, which features the Bollywood vocal debut of Kylie Minogue ("I met
with her today, she was singing one of my songs to me."). But first
he's preparing for his three Oscar nominations. How does he fancy his
chances? "I have very low expectations," he says. "Ultimately, we
wanted to make a statement with the Slumdog soundtrack and we've done
that. The confidence level for musicians in India is higher than it's
ever been."
• The Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack is out now. The 81st Annual Academy Awards
is on Sky Movies Premiere, Sun
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