Dileep Kumar Rajagopala, a.k.a. Allah Rakha Rahman, a first-generation Muslim convert, is an unlikely creation of two Tamil Brahmins — K. Balachander and Mani Ratnam. His creation was birthed in the womb of an ugly spat between Balachander and Ratnam on one side and Ilaiyaraaja on the other.

Then the reigning monarch of Tamil film music, Ilaiyaraaja, was universally feared for his blunt candour but was never crossed because every song that his genius created was a sure-shot chart-topper.

Mani Ratnam’s 1992 Roja was the wrecking ball that displaced Ilaiyaraaja’s musical suzerainty. More than fifty per cent of the movie’s extraordinary success owes to Rahman’s music which sounded fresh to the 1970s and 80s generations, which had just stepped into college and high school.

His music also coincided with the arrival of new-gen Tamil directors like S. Shankar. Rahman became unstoppable. Comparisons with Ilaiyaraaja — one of his former Gurus — became inevitable as we shall see.

Needless, Bollywood too, came calling. Ramgopal Varma roped him in for Rangeela. Subhash Ghai enlisted him for Taal. He also scored popular music for the 2006 Communist propaganda film Rang De Basanti.

Rahman’s non-film musical repertoire is also quite substantial. In 1997, the Government of India hired him to do music for India’s national song, Vande Mataram; what we got was a singularly jarring piece sung in Rahman’s singularly unmusical voice; it was an affront inflicted upon the original tune set in the mellifluous Desh Raag — a highly appropriate choice of Raag.

In 2010, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi recruited him to compose music for Jai Jai Garvi Gujarat commemorating the golden jubilee (Swarnim Gujarat) of the formation of the Gujarat state.

His 2008 Academy award for Slumdog Millionaire followed by a Grammy in 2010 catapulted him to global renown. His dream run marched apace roughly till the end of the 2010s decade although new entrants in Tamil film music were edging him out — brash stormtroopers like Anirudh had pretty much usurped Rahman’s place. In a way, Rahman had himself scripted his slide into irrelevance hastened by these enfants terribles through his wanton use of technology to “produce" — and not create — music. Rahman is the herald of the deplorable culture of replacing years of rigorous voice culture by AutoTune.

Ilaiyaraaja is the last of the truly original geniuses........

© News18