A.R. Rahman: The Genius Who Took Indian Music Global | Nikhil Kamath | People by WTF | Ep 15
A.R. Rahman (guest), Nikhil Kamath (host)
In this episode of Nikhil Kamath, featuring A.R. Rahman and Nikhil Kamath, A.R. Rahman: The Genius Who Took Indian Music Global | Nikhil Kamath | People by WTF | Ep 15 explores a.R. Rahman on craft, faith, technology, and global ambition today Rahman recounts an upbringing shaped by his father’s early death, financial instability, and a studio-centered childhood—crediting his mother’s strength and entrepreneurial grit for keeping the family afloat and pushing him into music early.
A.R. Rahman on craft, faith, technology, and global ambition today
Rahman recounts an upbringing shaped by his father’s early death, financial instability, and a studio-centered childhood—crediting his mother’s strength and entrepreneurial grit for keeping the family afloat and pushing him into music early.
He explains how building Panchathan (home) studio gave him privacy to experiment, leading to Mani Ratnam’s discovery and the overnight impact of Roja (1991), which he frames as a deliberate attempt to make Indian songs “world-ready” in production, vibe, and recording.
The discussion expands into how artists must keep evolving—especially in an AI era—by being contrarian to predictive models, investing in mastery, and prioritizing sincerity over speed or formulas.
Rahman also shares a purpose-driven outlook: founding KM Music Conservatory, advocating responsible AI to reduce harm, embracing live/immersive entertainment as the future, and grounding his life in Sufi-inspired spirituality, service, and humility despite global fame.
Key Takeaways
Rahman’s mother functioned as the ‘first institution’ behind his career.
After his father died when he was nine, his mother rented out musical equipment to survive, refused to sell his father’s gear, and later pushed Rahman to start playing professionally—turning crisis into a pathway.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
A private sandbox accelerates originality.
He describes Panchathan Studio as empowering because nobody judged his experiments; unlike big studios where peers watched, his home studio let him iterate until the music matched his standards.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Roja’s “trend change” was intentional global positioning, not luck.
Rahman aimed to solve why Indians listened to Pink Floyd/Queen/John Williams but “they don’t listen to us,” citing language, production, recording quality, and vibe—then engineered his sound accordingly.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Sustained relevance comes from resisting overproduction and constantly re-learning.
He limited film output early (contrasting peers doing “thirty movies a year”) to protect creative growth, later “escaped” to London/Hollywood to study and refresh his artistic vocabulary.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
In an AI world, winning means being creatively contrarian.
Rahman argues AI learns patterns from the past, so artists must surprise the predictive model—changing structure, keys, rhythms, or narrative pacing to create what cannot be easily averaged or replicated.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
AI needs human-set ‘rules,’ because economic harm can mirror physical harm.
He compares uncontrolled AI to handing out a gun: even without violence, it can “pull the carpet off” workers by erasing livelihoods, so leaders must constrain deployment and create alternatives before disruption.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Live and immersive experiences will gain value as content becomes cheap.
As screens flood daily life, Rahman expects concerts, musical theatre, symphonies, and immersive venues (Sphere-like formats, domes, scent/haptics/ambisonic sound) to matter more because they restore community and sensory awe.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Notable Quotes
“School is not just about education. It's about understanding humanity.”
— A.R. Rahman
“Each Tamil song I do should go around the world.”
— A.R. Rahman
“You have to be contrarian to whatever the predictive model is.”
— A.R. Rahman
“Don’t make people lose jobs… you can pull the carpet off, make them jobless.”
— A.R. Rahman
“That is the irony of my life… nobody allows you to eat… ‘Can I take a photograph?’”
— A.R. Rahman
Questions Answered in This Episode
On Panchathan Studio: what specific gear/workflow in 1989–91 gave you an edge, and what would be the modern equivalent ‘unfair advantage’ for a young composer today?
Rahman recounts an upbringing shaped by his father’s early death, financial instability, and a studio-centered childhood—crediting his mother’s strength and entrepreneurial grit for keeping the family afloat and pushing him into music early.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
You said Roja addressed ‘language, production, vibe, feel, recording.’ Which one mattered most, and what are 2–3 concrete production choices you made that Indian film music wasn’t doing then?
He explains how building Panchathan (home) studio gave him privacy to experiment, leading to Mani Ratnam’s discovery and the overnight impact of Roja (1991), which he frames as a deliberate attempt to make Indian songs “world-ready” in production, vibe, and recording.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
You limited output early to avoid being ‘consumed’ like your father. What boundary-setting rules do you follow today (team structure, time blocks, number of films) to protect creativity and health?
The discussion expands into how artists must keep evolving—especially in an AI era—by being contrarian to predictive models, investing in mastery, and prioritizing sincerity over speed or formulas.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
On AI: what exact ‘rules’ would you want—copyright training limits, disclosure, revenue-sharing, job-transition funds, or something else—and who should enforce them?
Rahman also shares a purpose-driven outlook: founding KM Music Conservatory, advocating responsible AI to reduce harm, embracing live/immersive entertainment as the future, and grounding his life in Sufi-inspired spirituality, service, and humility despite global fame.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
You suggested AI should do what humans can’t, not what humans do better. What are 3 examples in music/film where AI genuinely adds new capability rather than replacing a person?
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Transcript Preview
[upbeat music]
...This compared to this profile shot.
There was something-
PM shot, PM.
But this is the final stage. [upbeat music]
Hello. Mr. Cha. Mm-hmm. Hi.
How are you?
Good.
Thank you.
Thank you for joining us.
Thank you.
Okay.
She was telling me earlier-
Put you under the bus now. [laughing]
[laughing] She doesn't speak much. You also don't speak much. [laughing]
[laughing] I told you, right? I predicted, right?
When you speak Tamil-
Yeah
... I can understand it, 'cause-
Oh.
-I'm also a South Indian.
Oh!
And I've grown up all my life in Bangalore.
Bangalore. So Kannadiga.
Kannadiga.
Yeah.
Half Kannadiga, half Konkani. Dad is from this town near Udupi called Udyavar.
Mm.
And Mom is from Mysore. Have you been to Bangalore much?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
'80s. [chuckles]
Yeah?
Quite a lot. I used to work for Kannada industry a little bit.
How is the Kannada industry?
Kannada industry is now rocking, right?
Mm.
There was a dormant twenty years, nothing happened.
Mm.
After the greats.
Mm.
Now they just leaped.
Mm.
I met, uh... I sometimes wish all of them. I call them on Zoom and wish, uh-
They're doing much better.
Like Kantara, music composer-
Yeah.
Prashabh and everybody.
So you grew up in, uh, Chennai? Most of your life has been in Chennai?
Most of the life in Chennai, yeah. I was born in Chennai. My father... Yes, he's work-- he used to work in the studios.
Mm.
And then we, we are in the belly of the beast, near Kodambakkam.
Okay.
Our house, where all the studios used to exist.
Yeah. So maybe we start by making you a little bit awkward and getting you to speak-
Mm-hmm.
-about your life so far. Everybody knows you, and, uh, I'm a fan. I've heard so many of your songs from different eras, and I love them. I wish I could sing better, and then I would have, but I can't.
Mm.
My mother used to be a music teacher.
Oh!
Classical Carnatic music, and they tried to teach us everything.
[chuckles]
So I went to classes for, uh, guitar, uh, piano, flute, mandolin, everything.
Oh!
But I discovered, after much effort, that I have zero talent.
[chuckles] No, it's not about talent. It's about leaning in.
Yeah.
Never give up.
[gentle music] Tell us a bit about your childhood. It feels like you're a... or from what I've heard, you were very introverted.
Yeah.
And now you're more open to speaking, because, as you have said, your ability to articulate has gone up significantly.
Mm-hmm.
What changed?
Um, I think when I was growing up, I was-- went through all this, the death of my father, my grandmother, and then, um, conflicts, where I was just seeing trauma every day. Like, my mother was a single, very, very confident lady. She took all the pain.
At what age did Dad pass away?
Um, nine.
Mm.
And she had to go through, protect us from... And she was so strong that withstanding all the kind of humiliations, she single-handedly brought us up, right? Encouraging me to go into music. She decided for me that I should be in music, so I've told that, told that many times. And so, in a way, I felt like I should be clean, because I had three sisters, and me behaving in a certain way would also reflect what's coming back. And I was-- my whole childhood was with forty-year-old and fifty-year-old, and sixty-year-olds in the studio-
Install uListen to search the full transcript and get AI-powered insights
Get Full TranscriptGet more from every podcast
AI summaries, searchable transcripts, and fact-checking. Free forever.
Add to Chrome