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Considered a genius in fusing Indian and western musical traditions, A.R. Rahman's innovative style was recognized at Sunday night's Oscar awards where he won two Oscars for Best Original Score and Best Original Song for the highly successful film Slumdog Millionaire.
The Oscar wins highlighted not only the film's theatrical success, which garnered it eight 8 Oscars including Best Picture, but its musical success as well.
Known during his childhood and teenage years as A. S. Dileep Kumar, Rahman changed his name to Allah Rakkha Rahman following his conversion to Islam during his early 20s.
Rahman's success has not been limited to the Oscar awards. He has been winning awards the past two decades for his compositions featured in north India's Bollywood film industry and south India’s booming film industry that some say is even bigger than Bollywood.
Rahman also won a Golden Globe award in January for Best Soundtrack.
Although Rahman is an Indian film composer whose work is primarily found in Bollywood films, music critics say Slumdog's soundtrack is neither uniquely Bollywood nor uniquely Hollywood and is a great example of the emerging overlap and fusion of international music genres, traditions and styles.
Slumdog Millionaire tells the story of a young Muslim man from the slums of Mumbai whose appearance and grand prize win on the Indian version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? leads television executives to believe his success is the result of cheating rather than the consequence of a hard life on the streets of India’s biggest cities.
Set and filmed in India, the British film opened in North America with a limited release on November 12, but after gaining critical acclaim following its limited showing, the film opened nationwide on Jan. 23, 2009 grossing around $98 million.
Posted on February 20, 2009
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