A.R. Rahman : Slumdog Millionaire
A. R. Rahman is a celebrated composer in the Eastern world with over 100 awards and recognitions, however, in the Western world he is relatively unknown. For the first time in the composer's history, he was nominated and awarded both the Golden Globe and the Academy Award for Best Film Score for his work in Slumdog Millionaire. The music mixes tribal drumming, techno, hip-hop, raga rock, classical orchestration, and the prancing strings and emotive singing associated with India’s Bollywood movie scores. From the movie's first frames --- with children racing through alleyways, knocking over merchants and pottery, police kicking loose clay roof tiles, disrupted birds fluttering from gutters -- we hear the sound of their commotion made manifest in "O... Saya." It's a rumbling hybrid of Bollywood and hip-hop, a brand new collaboration between Rahman and M.I.A. It's the kind of cinematic moment where image and sound coexist. And that's only the first five minutes. M.I.A.'s appreciation for Bollywood music led her to record much of last year's Kala inside A.R. Rahman's studio in India, although the two had never worked together until now. Referring to him in URB magazine as "the Indian Timbaland," M.I.A. obviously jumped at the chance to work on "O... Saya" with the famed composer.
M.I.A. crops up again, later in the film, with the remix of her worldwide hit "Paper Planes" seemingly made for Slumdog, as the lyrics pronounce, "Sometimes I feel like sitting on trains..." while a light blue locomotive chugs and hurls its way through India, young boys perched up top in the sepia sunlight scoping out for a scrap of food. Other songs on the soundtrack include "Gangsta Blues," featuring hip-hop artist BlaaZe, which flutters with the rhythms of a film projector, capturing a bit of the madness of crowds as they disperse in a thousand directions to escape the claustrophobia of back alleys. And nothing quite prepares you for the triumphant climax, the overarching ode to joy that is "Jai Ho," closing out the film in a rousing sing-a-long that's had film audiences burst into spontaneous applause.
Song List:| 1. | O... Saya - Performed by A R Rahman & M.I.A. | | | 2. | Riots - A R Rahman | | | 3. | Mausam & Escape - A R Rahman | | | 4. | Paper Planes - M.I.A. | | | 5. | Paper Planes DFA REMIX - M.I.A. | | | 6. | Ringa Ringa - A R Rahman featuring Alka Yagnik & Ila Arun | | | 7. | Liquid Dance - A R Rahman featuring Palakkad Sriram & Madhumitha | | | 8. | Latika's Theme - A R Rahman featuring Suzanne | | | 9. | Aaj Ki Raat - Sonu Nigam, Mahalaxmi Lyer & Alisha Chinoi | | | 10. | Millionaire - A R Rahman featuring Madhumitha | | | 11. | Gangsta Blues - A R Rahman featuring BlaaZe & Tanvi Shah | | | 12. | Dreams on Fire - A R Rahman featuring Suzzanne | | | 13. | Jai Ho - A R Rahman featuring Sukhvinder Singh, Tanvi Shah & Mahalaxmi Iyer | |
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