There are over 1 billion people in India alone. That’s about an eighth (depending on what data you go off of) of the entire world’s population. So when people think that Indian musical culture consists of only Bollywood and maybe some meditative chants, it’s like saying the only music that comes out of America is Country rap.

It’s simply not true! Don’t get us wrong - we love Bollywood music and films, but there’s a wealth of other music in India that’s worth your time. There are bands and individual artists, but for our purposes, we’re focusing on the latter. If you don’t know who we’re talking about, his name is A.R. Rahman, and if you enjoy any classical music at all – you need to add him to your streaming playlists now!

Allah Rakha Rahman: A Musical Prophet

Every hundred years, we get artists that make us remember what music is really supposed to sound like. You know the early classical prophets like Mozart and Beethoven, but they lived centuries ago. We’ve had a few scattered through the last hundred years, like Yo-Yo Ma, and our boy A.R. Rahman.

Rahman was born in India in 1966 to a very musical family. His father made traditional Tamil music for films and allowed Allah to learn instruments and equipment. That practice allowed him to get a degree in Western classical music from Oxford, though he didn’t have the traditional academic experience.

From Jingles to Bands to Broadway

A.R. has always had music in his life, whether he was in a band, writing advertising jingles, or writing the music for the UK Broadway show, Bombay Dreams. He’s behind the scores of more movies than you can count, including the award-winning film, Slumdog Millionaire. And somehow, though we don’t know where he finds the time, he still travels the world and puts on curated shows.