Musical genius A R Rahman has won the Oscar for Best Original Song and Best Original Score for 'Slmudog Millionaire'.Rahman had to overcome many hurdles on his path from his native Chennai (formerly Madras) in south India to the Kodak Theater for the Academy Awards ceremony.
After his musician father died when he was 9, his mother scraped out a living by renting out her husband's musical equipment. Rahman began supporting his family at age 11 as a keyboard player in south Indian film composer Ilaiyaraaja's ensemble, and later formed a rock band and toured with prominent Indian musicians like tabla maestro Zakir Hussain. He earned a scholarship to the Trinity College of Music in London, where he studied Western classical music.
Back in India, he worked on advertising jingles until director Mani Ratnam tapped him to compose the score for the 1992 film 'Roja'. Rahman ended up changing the face of Indian film music by introducing Western styles like reggae, rarely heard on Indian soundtracks.
"I think my philosophy of life is music is universal ... so I'm never closed to things," said Rahman. "Like some people say, 'Oh, I hate heavy metal,' or 'I hate jazz.' Why do you need to hate it? Why don't you appreciate it in a certain context."
Western film composers began taking note of his work. Rahman's first major exposure to a larger Western audience came when Andrew Lloyd Webber asked him to write the songs for the 2002 London musical 'Bombay Dreams'.
"Like any good artist, A.R. is not a traditionalist, he's a revolutionary. He uses all the revolutionary things that come from all over the world in his stuff ... hip-hop beats, electronics .. and there's an incredible inquisitiveness and playfulness in his music," said the Oscar-winning, German-born film composer Hans Zimmer. "Plus he writes a bloody good tune ,,, and at the end of the day it comes down to can the guy write a tune or not and obviously he can."
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