The interview which appears below was originally published in Nasreen Munni Kabir's book, A.R. Rahman: The Spirit of Music. ©The rights to this material are reserved to the owner. If you have any concerns or comments, please send an email to info@rahmaniac.com.
NMK: Beyond the talent of the singer, should the singing match screen performance?
ARR: It should be foremost on your mind. You need to stay with the mood that the scene requires. The song should not stop the narrative flow. Suppose a director wants a song to create a light moment, you can’t have it performed solemnly. A light mood is created by the energy in the voice; otherwise, it will not match the actor’s performance and the song will only draw the wrong kind of attention.
There was a surreal dream sequence in Rakeysh Mehra’s Delhi 6, underscored by the background song “Dil gira dafatan.” The hero [Abhishek Bachchan] meets the heroine [Sonam Kapoor] and wants to tell her that he loves her but can’t bring himself to say it. So the singing style had to express the hero’s hidden feelings. All his emotions had to come through the way the British-born singer, Ash King, sang the song.
NMK: This suggests that you direct the performance of the singer in order to match the emotional expression of the actor.
ARR: The film director and lyricist are also present during the recording and together we guide the singer. I believe singers shouldn’t just sing well, but have acting and composing skills too. This adds so much to their abilities. I think every artist needs additional skills that complement the talent they naturally possess.
Apart from being a composer, I have to think like a film director so I can understand the needs of a film. When to create a dramatic moment through music, and when not to. Only then will the score create an impact. It also helps when a director is objective and can read how the audience will perceive his film.
NMK: Lata Mangeshkar has the skills of composing and acting behind her, and they do indeed help to complement and enhance her extraordinary singing.
What was your experience of working with her?
ARR: I did get intimidated because of who she is. At first, she seemed intimidated too. [smiles] Our collaboration was a very memorable experience for me.
Lata Mangeshkar has sung some of the best Hindi film songs of all time. She comes with her own extraordinary sound. And if I was going to compose a song for her, I knew the song needed to be special—I had to bring out an untapped side of her talent. The whole effort for me was to create a Lataji song that hadn’t been heard before.
So when we came to recording “Jiya jale” in Dil Se, I asked Mani Ratnam about the scene. He explained the heroine’s character, played by Preity Zinta, and told me that he intended to shoot the song in Kerala. This gave me the idea of adding the opening lines in Malayalam—the words are from a wedding song, a playful taunting of the bride. So following a rhythmic flurry of vocals, Lataji sings the main verse.
The song didn’t take long to record. We completed it in three hours. People now consider it a classic.
NMK: You’ve created great songs with Asha Bhosle too.
ARR: Ashaji can hold the song no matter how much instrumentation and sounds are added. Like Lataji, she sings the lyrics so distinctly and clearly that you can understand every word.
Asha Bhosle creates a beautiful feeling. Her voice goes straight to your heart. I remember one of her Tamil songs “Shenbagame shenbagame” from the 1988 film Enga Ooru Pattukaran by Mr. Ilayaraja. It was a major hit. I didn’t know who had sung the song and only later did I realize it was Ashaji. I decided right then and there that I wanted to work with her.
When Rangeela happened, we thought her voice would suit the songs perfectly. Ram Gopal Varma and I didn’t know whether she would accept to sing for me. I called her in Mumbai and she agreed to come to Chennai. “Tanha tanha” was the first track that we recorded together.
NMK: That’s a great song. You’ve worked so often with Hariharan. What does he bring to a song?
ARR: He’s just fantastic at improvisation. He takes the melody and improvises. He sings wonderful alaaps. I usually record an hour of his singing and then edit. If you listen to the beginning of “Hai Rama” in Rangeela, you’ll hear just how brilliantly he improvises.
But you can’t use improvisation in every song. Once you identify the kind of song it is, it dictates if elements of improvisation can be added. If you’re working with a melody, the words have to be sung in that melody. You can’t improvise because it isn’t jamming.
For the past fifteen years, whenever I have needed a singer, my friend Brij Bhushanji in Mumbai cherry-picks the best singers for me. Some of the singers he’s introduced to me are legendary in their own right, including Shankar Mahadevan, Madhushree, Sukhwinder Singh, Mahalaxmi, Vijay Prakash, and Sonu Nigam.
NMK: How did you find Kailash Kher?
ARR: There was a time when I needed a qawali kind of voice. I asked the songwriter Mehboob and he suggested Kailash. Kailash came to Chennai and we recorded a song for M.F. Husain’s Meenaxi (2004). When I heard his voice, I knew he could sing other songs too.
Kailash happened to be recording in my studio one night when I was working on the basic tune of “Mangal Mangal” for The Rising. So I told him: “Kailash, I’ve got a song, let’s do a scratch. If they like your voice, we might use it.”
His voice suited the song so well. I played it to Ketan Mehta, the director of The Rising, and he loved it too. So we stayed with Kailash Kher’s rendition of “Mangal Mangal.” He has a lot of talent.
NMK: Like me, many people feel that you have an excellent singing voice. Why do you choose to sing some songs and not all?
ARR: A song has to be compelling for me to want to record it. I prefer singing good lyrics and not every song has great words. There are better singers who can do justice to those kinds of songs.
