AR Rahman on 99 Songs: This movie is from India to the world

AR Rahman barely utters a sentence without crediting yet another music producer designer or engineer who helped breathe life into his 99 Songs The maestro always eager to put the work of his team on a pedestal evidently held his dear ones close when presenting what is arguably his most ambitious project In an interview he discusses juggling duties as producer writer and composer of his upcoming releaseEdited excerpts from the interviewThere is evidently anticipation around a film coming out from your stable But what drew you to this one which you have also cowrittenBecause I have worked with the top guys in Hollywood and being a member of the Academy I had the idea that India should reach out to the world with a film that matched the sensibilities of all We wanted to create a new voice that represented the Indian film industry This movie is from India to the worldIn a previous interaction you had stated that musicals in India fail because they are not tested like they should be What campaigns did you run to address this for 99 SongsWe did a previs visualising a film in 2D or 3D before creating it following which we changed many things I tried to be true to the script I didnrsquot just create five songs and use them We thought of the mindset of the protagonist the things he would compose in the beginning of his career and how his music would evolve and become deeper Like the film the music too has an arc that comes full circle We sent him Ehan Bhat leading man to the KM Music Conservatory Rahmanrsquos music school in Chennai for a yearlong training and subsequently to Hollywood for a fourweek acting workshop where my friends taught himHaving worked in Hollywood films what were the learnings that you directly appliedMost of these films Hollywood films are poverty oriented I wondered what were the things that could obstruct people from around the world from watching an Indian movie So everything including the casting was done such that it could be easier for them to transition and watch itWhile a lot of the singers are those you have worked with did anyone particularly excelFor each voice my supervisor Dilshad Shabbir Shaikh and I heard 20 to 25 singers before we arrived at one that sounded right The surprising pieces of work were by Arijit Singh who sang Jwalamukhi and Armaan Malik who rendered Humnawaa With their voice it felt like a new cast was being backed by new voices So the whole creation felt fresh They created an identity that resonated with the characters and helped build a sense of credibilityEverything with regard to the music was carefully created Therersquos a lullaby and a godh bharai song and several songs that people can use in real life as part of our Indian culture I decided to create cool versions so that the songs could live beyond the life of the movie Creating the soundtrack in three languages was torture We finished composing it in Hindi and then had to do it again in my mothertongue Tamil without making it seem like a dubbed piece We went back and forth at least 11 to 12 times on each song But I have seen the Tamil version and to an extent of 99 percent it is aligned with the native languageIs there something about film composing that you now see differently after taking on duties as producerwriter as wellSometimes you make a song and then wonder if it can hold in the screenplay I had to cut my own songs sometimes as much as 15 bars or one minute The decision to truncate it was needed A movie like food is an emotional ride If you have too much you are uncomfortable With films sometimes you must cut out the most favourite scene if they obstruct the flow of the story A consulting editor added a lot of beauty to it