Bollywood Home » Musicians » A R Rehman A R Rehman - Introduction - The very name A R Rehman tells us what a brilliant musician he is. A R Rehman is the man who gave a new dimension to contemporary film music in India.

Born on the 6th of January, 1966 in Chennai, A R Rehman was actually named as Dileep Kumar and belonged to a Tamil Mudaliar family. R.K Sekhar, his father was a famous music director, conductor and arranger, who worked in Malayalam films. He had also worked under the guidance of Devarajan and Salil Chowdhary. His mother was known as Kasthuri, which was later changed to Kareema Begum.

Early life of A R Rehman - A R Rehman began taking piano lessons when he was 4. He lost his father when he was 9. For supporting the family financially he started working as a keyboard player in Illaiyaraja's troupe when he was 11. He also left school and trotted the globe with several orchestra groups. He also worked with Zakir Hussain, a famous expert of tabla, on some tours around the world. He was rewarded with a scholarship at Oxford University's Trinity College of Music and earned a Western Classical Music degree. Afterwards he converted to Islam and got the name A R Rehman.



Career of A R Rehman - A R Rehman returned to India with the aim of changing the scenario of contemporary music in the nation. He kept on working as a part of different music troupes in India and also a member of popular Indian rock bands such as Nemesis Avenue, Magic and Roots. As a part of these bands he worked with his future co-musicians Ranjit Barot, Sivamani Anandan and Suresh Peters. For the next 8 or 9 years he also worked with Ouseappachan, M.S. Vishwanathan and Illaiyaraja.

In 1987 A R Rehman worked for the jingle for Allwyn watches as a music composer for the first time. His work was acknowledged soon. For almost five years he composed over 300 jingles. The popular ads for which he worked include MRF Tyres, Leo Coffee, Parry's, Boost and Asian Paints. The television channels for which he composed title music comprise Asianet, JJTV and Sun TV.

Career of A R Rehman in Bollywood -

The award function at which A R Rehman received an award for the category of the Best Jingle Composer for his Leo Coffeee ad, Mani Ratnam - Spielberg of India approached him. After that A R Rehman had to never look back.

His music in 'Roja' became popular worldwide and after that his music in a number of films like 'Jeans', 'Bombay', 'Gentleman', 'Dil Se', 'Pukar', 'Saathiya', 'Lagaan' and 'Taal', became great hits. Rehman's latest hits include music in the films 'Rang De Basanti', 'Guru' and 'Jodha Akbar'. A R Rehman has also worked as a singer in his films 'Dil Se', 'Rang De Basanti', 'Guru' and 'Jodha Akbar'.

Awards received by A R Rehman - A R Rehman has won the Filmfare Award for almost six times, four National Film Awards, 3 Zee Cine Awards and one R.D. Burman Award.

Browse through the other interesting pages on our site sitagita.com for collecting detailed facts on the other popular musicians in Bollywood.