A.R. Rahman Biography and Works.

Allah Rakha Rahman (A.R. Rahman) was born on January 6, 1966 in Madras, presently Chennai as A.S. Dileep Kumar. He is an Indian music composer, record producer, musician, singer and philanthropist. Rahman started learning piano at the age of four. His father passed away when he was nine years old.

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.

Then he moved to advertising and composed more than 300 jingles over five years. In 1989, he started a small studio called the Panchathan Record Inn that was one of the most well-equipped and advanced sound recording studios in India.

Rahman played a few of his music samples to famous director Mani Ratnam at an award function and Mani Ratnam took him as a music composer in his next film – Roja. The enormous success of his first Hindi venture was followed by the chart-topping soundtrack albums.

A.R. Rahman now is popularly known as the man who has redefined contemporary Indian music. Hailed by the Time magazine as the ‘Mozart of Madras, Rahman, according to a BBC estimate, has sold more than 150 million copies of his work comprising music from more than 100 film soundtracks and albums across over half a dozen languages, including landmark scores, such as ‘Roja’, ‘Bombay’, Dil Se’, ‘Taal’, ‘Lagaan’, ‘Vandemataram’ and more recently, Jodhaa Akbar’, ‘Delhi 6’ and ‘Slumdog Millionaire’.

In 2009, Rahman bagged two Oscars for his work in Slumdog Millionaire.

Trivia

In 1989, Rahman converted to Islam, the religion of his mother’s family.