AR Rahman Birthday Special: Lesser unknown facts about the Mozart of Madras

Bollywood has several legendary lyricists and musicians. But one man is a class apart, his music reaches straight to the heart. He is AR Rahman an inspiration for budding musicians all over the world. The music maestro whose tunes have a universal appeal has also been nominated for Oscar’s five times, won twice. AR Rahman has also won National Film Award six times in his three-decade-long career.

 

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The Mozart of Madras is celebrating his birthday on January 6, 2022. On AR Rahman birthday here we share some unknown facts of the popular but humble music maestro.

On the occasion of AR Rahman’s birthday, here are some unknown facts of the Oscar winner:

AR Rahman is the first Asian to have won 2 Oscars in the same year for ‘Slumdog Millionaire’. Besides winning two Academy Awards for Slumdog Millionaire,  he was once again nominated for Oscars for his 2011 film 127 Hours. This was his second collaboration with filmmaker Danny Boyle after Slumdog Millionaire.

Rahman was presented with these prestigious awards for the 2009 movie Slumdog Millionaire: two Grammys, one BAFTA and Golden Globe Awards.

 

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Jai Ho from Slumdog Millionaire won AR Rahman an academy award. It was originally composed for Subhash Ghai’s 2008 film Yuvvraaj. The movie featured Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif, Zayed Khan and Anil Kapoor.  The song was supposed to be filmed on Zayed Khan in the film.

Before he stepped in the entertainment industry, AR Rahman was seen in Doordarshan’s Wonder Balloon as a kid. He shot to fame as a kid who could play 4 keyboards at once. Mani Ratnam was the first one to spot the talent in Rahman and gave him Roja. Rahman got a sum of Rs 25,000 for the project. He also won the National Film Award for this project. The Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri recipient has won 4 National Awards

 

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The Mozart of Madras had once revealed that the composition of the song Hai Rama from Rangeela was inspired by the background score in a romantic sequence in 1960 classic Mughal-e-Azam.

AR Rahman turned director with the virtual reality film, Le Musk. In April 2017, the movie was shown at the ‘NAB’, Las Vegas in a room with multi-sensory ‘Voyager’ chairs. It is yet to get a release in India.

 

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The legendary composer composed a special song for the Indian release of Avengers: Endgame. The special song was released in the presence of Avengers: Endgame co-director Joe Russo, who was in India to promote the film.

AR Rahman had also joined hands with Mick Jagger, Dave Stewart and Joss Stone to introduce a completely different kind of music under the name SuperHeavy. Stewart termed SuperHeavy as a ‘mad alchemist type experiment’.

 

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AR Rahman is very famous internationally. In 2013, a street in Markham, Ontario, Canada, was named in Rahman’s honour.

Reportedly, Airtel’s signature tune which is composed by Rahman is the world’s most downloaded mobile music. It has more than 150 million downloads.

 

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Here’s wishing a very happy birthday to AR Rahman!

Also Read:  AR Rahman’s daughter Khatija Rahman gets engaged in a private ceremony, See pics