AR Rahman: From the Oscar in 2009, to musical innovations

In 2009, AR Rahman won two Oscars—for Original Score and Original Song—for his work in Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire Image: Jeff Kravitz/Filmmagic

On February 22, 2009, at the 81st Academy Awards, when AR Rahman won his first two Oscars—for Original Score and Original Song—for his work in the Danny Boyle-directed Slumdog Millionaire, quite a few were left scratching their heads back home in India. Even for the most die-hard Rahman fan (or perhaps especially for them), ‘Jai Ho’ was hardly the music composer’s best. Despite winning eight Oscars, the film itself had been received with muted enthusiasm in India, with the Indian Express calling it “Salaam Bombay on speed”, referring to Mira Nair’s 1988 classic, while others were revolted by what has come to be called “poverty porn”.

These wins were accompanied and followed by a plethora of other international award nominations and wins, including two Grammys, for the same tracks. Although Rahman had worked on international films earlier as well—He Ping’s Chinese film Warriors of Heaven and Earth (2003) and Shekhar Kapur’s English film Elizabeth (2007)—it was Slumdog Millionaire that firmly imprinted Rahman on Hollywood’s consciousness.

So much so, that last August, in an interview to Forbes, he said: “As an Indian composer, winning an Oscar and all that stuff, there is a pigeonhole you are put into. ‘Oh Indian stuff, let’s go to AR!’ Even though I have done 127 Hours, Pele and other stuff, but still the urge… there’s nothing bad with that. I am doing a lot of Indian movies. I love doing Indian movies. I am proud. But I also love to do something that is completely unrelated to India, as a creative expression. To get those is very difficult in Hollywood, all the places are already taken.”

In the years following his Oscar wins, Rahman has worked in several international films, including Boyle’s 127 Hours (2010), Alex Kurtzman’s People Like Us (2012), Lasse Hallstrom’s The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014), Jeff and Michael Zimbalist’s Pele (2016), and Gurinder Chadha’s Viceroy’s House (2017) and Blinded by the Light (2018). In 2011, he released a single, ‘Miracle Worker’, along with Mick Jagger of Rolling Stones, as part of the latter’s project called SuperHeavy. In 2019, Marvel Studios roped in Rahman to compose the ‘Marvel Anthem’ in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu in its attempt to widen its India fanbase.

Also read: A R Rahman: A sound in the making