A. R. Rahman

Allah Rakha Rahman, known professionally as A. R. Rahman, is probably the most celebrated musician in the history of Indian popular music. At the time this article is being published, he boasts 46 million monthly listeners on Spotify, well above international names like Madonna, Abba or Beatles. And the Indian market is still fairly limited on that platform: switch over to YouTube, and his monthly listeners climb to 338 million, leaving behind even present-day stars like The Weeknd, Ed Sheeran and Coldplay.

His enormous popularity is due, as with almost all of India's most beloved musicians, to his ties with the film industry: Rahman is indeed a singer, multi-instrumentalist and producer who works almost exclusively as a composer of soundtracks (in India referred to by the term filmi). From 1992 to the present day he has composed the songs for roughly 180 films, many of which have entered India's collective imagination partly thanks to his work.

In the West he's best known for his collaborations with Danny Boyle, which earned him Oscar, Grammy, Bafta and Golden Globe wins, but the most significant recognition he's received has come from the Indian market, which, being anything but sporadic, truly reflects the esteem in which he's held: he in fact holds the record for the most wins at both the National Film Awards and the Filmfare Awards, the country's two most important annual ceremonies.

Rahman comes from a musical family: his father, R. K. Shekhar, was a prominent composer for Malayalam-language cinema. Although the language is spoken almost exclusively in the state of Kerala (southwest India), from as early as the first half of the twentieth century many musicians linked to its film industry relocated to Chennai, in the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu, where they had access to better equipment and recording studios. That's how Rahman came to be born in that city in 1967, immersed in music from the very start: he began playing piano as a child and soon proved himself skilled on harmonium and electronic keyboards as well.

When Shekhar died in 1976, his family, in order to make ends meet, began renting out his instruments and technical equipment, which brought them into contact with Ilaiyaraaja, who was emerging as the foremost composer in South India. Impressed by the young Rahman's talent, he brought him on as a keyboardist among his backing musicians and kept him by his side throughout the 1980s.

Ilaiyaraaja is a giant of Indian music with a staggeringly vast catalogue. No one really knows exactly how many songs he's recorded — estimates vary wildly depending on the source, but always run into the thousands. To this day he's known for his visionary approach, his ability to tackle and blend different styles, his curious attitude toward technology, and his academic rigour: all qualities that Rahman, 23 years his junior, managed to inherit and infuse with the sensibility of his own generation, adding to them a welcome dose of humanity (Rahman is regarded by all his peers as humble and kind, whereas Ilaiyaraaja is known to intimidate many due to his difficult temperament).

During that formative period Rahman became highly sought-after: he also worked as a session musician for other major names across India's various film industries, going on to play alongside figures from the academic music world too, spanning Hindustani and Carnatic classical music as well as qawwali, the sacred music of the Chishti Sufi order.

Rahman began his solo career in 1992, when director Mani Ratnam asked him to work on "Roja", which would become a classic of Tamil-language cinema: the soundtrack, released on cassette, sold three million copies, a record figure for a composer making his debut in the Chennai industry.

From there, the road that would take Rahman to the top was clear. He took his most important step, however, in 1995, when he recorded a soundtrack for a Hindi-language film for the first time, the most widely spoken language in the country. This move into the largest industry on the Indian subcontinent would mark a divergence between his trajectory and that of his mentor: Ilaiyaraaja chose to remain faithful to the languages of South India, working only sporadically for Bollywood throughout his career, while Rahman, by contrast, threw himself into it headlong. The first piece of this new path was precisely the soundtrack to "Rangeela".

Directed by Ram Gopal Varma, regarded as one of the finest local directors of the Nineties, the film is a brilliant romantic comedy, elevated by Rahman's music, whose sensibility perfectly matches the production's all-out effort, with virtuosic direction, flashy set design, dazzling cinematography, elaborate choreography and frenetic music-video-style moments. For the occasion, Rahman recorded eight songs, all of which were used in the film.

It's not easy to establish what the official tracklist of "Rangeela" actually is: the cassette and CD released at the time have a different order from the one in which the songs appear in the film, the version on streaming services has yet another arrangement, and so does the one on the album's official YouTube video.

"Rangeela" is considered one of Rahman's finest works, thanks to its bold experimentation in composition, arrangement and stylistic blending.

Focusing solely on the rhythm section, one can pick out drum machine beats interwoven with slapped bass lines ("Rangeela Re"), Indian percussion ("Hai Rama", "Kya Kare Kya Na Kare" and "Yaaron Sun Lo Zara"), Western classical orchestral percussion ("Pyaar Ye Jaane Kaisa"), programming typical of the downtempo electronic music of the era ("Tanha Tanha Yahan Pe Jeena"), and even blends of seemingly irreconcilable styles such as the broken rhythms of jungle and the rigid beats of new jack swing ("Mangta Hai Kya").

The arrangements, dominated by electronics, make it very hard to tell which instruments are real and which are synthesized or sampled, and the total lack of documentation on the matter — typical of the entire Indian music industry — certainly doesn't make things any easier to untangle.

Some songs have linear structures, while others are more ambitious, allowing themselves orchestral digressions ("Hai Rama", "Yaaron Sun Lo Zara") and free-form progressions where anything can happen ("Mangta Hai Kya", with its electronic soundscapes flowing into one another, crossed by blankets of keyboards, sudden volume shifts, vocal virtuosity and sampled choirs).

A balance between West and India runs through every moment: the radio-friendly catchiness of the melodies is set against a free, instinctive use of local music, at times aimed at subverting its very rules. Years later, Rahman himself would point out the presence of the raga bhairavi at the start of "Tanha Tanha Yahan Pe Jeena", usually employed towards the end of a composition, following a convention the author was unaware of at the time.

The lyrics, written by Mehboob Kotwal, are not quite as daring, but work perfectly for the film, whose plot — despite its ambitious technical execution — is fairly simple. Mehboob was still young at the time, but would go on to become a much sought-after lyricist.

The icing on the cake is provided by the performers: Asha Bhosle sings on two tracks, as does Udit Narayan, K. S. Chithra appears on "Yaaron Sun Lo Zara", while Hariharan and Swarnalatha duet on "Hai Rama", the biggest hit on the record. They all belong to the category of dubbing singers (known in India by the English term playback singers), those who lend their voices to the actors on screen without ever appearing in the films themselves, but who go on to become stars in their own right thanks to television appearances, concerts and radio play, where full credit for the performances is restored to them. Those just mentioned are among the biggest stars in Indian music, and each of them boasts extremely long and consistently successful careers: it's impossible to properly introduce them here, as each would require an article of their own.

In such an impressive line-up, the young Rahman carves out a small space for himself, singing "Mangta Hai Kya": he would later gain more confidence as a performer, eventually going on to sing entire soundtracks almost by himself.

"Rangeela" would end up as the fifth highest-grossing film of the year on the local market, while the soundtrack sold 3.2 million copies, placing third. Rahman would go on to achieve even more staggering results later on, but that takes nothing away from this work's central place in his career.

There's no consensus on which is his best work, because with 180 titles to his name, it would be impossible to concentrate all the praise on just one, but "Rangeela" certainly appears in every article that claims to explain how to approach his monumental career. Moreover, his fearless approach has influenced many of the most important musicians to follow in Indian cinema — just listen to the work of Amit Trivedi, Pritam, Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy or Vishal–Shekhar to see it for yourself.

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07/12/2025