A.R. Rahman and his journey to Oscar

Allah Rakha Rahman was born A.S. Dileep Kumar on January 6, 1966, in Madras (now Chennai), India, to a musically affluent family. Dileep started learning the piano at the age of 4, and at the age of 9, his father passed away. Since the pressure of supporting his family fell on him, he joined Ilayaraja's troupe as a keyboard player at the age of 11. He dropped out of school as a result of this and traveled all around the world with various orchestras.

He accompanied the great tabla maestro Zakir Hussain on a few world tours and also won a scholarship at the Trinity College of Music at Oxford University, where he studied Western classical music and obtained a degree in music. Due to some personal crisis, Dileep Kumar embraced Islam and came to be known as A.R. Rahman. In 1987, he moved to advertising, where he composed more than 300 jingles over 5 years. In 1989, he started a small studio called Panchathan Record Inn, which later developed into one of the most well-equipped and advanced sound recording studios in India.

At an advertising awards function, Rahman met one of India's most famous directors, Mani Ratnam. Rahman played him a few of his music samples. Mani loved them so much that he asked Rahman to compose the music for his next film, Roja (1992). The rest, as they say, is history. He went on to compose several great hits for Tamil-language films before composing the score and songs for his first Hindi-language film, Rangeela (1995). The enormous success of his first Hindi venture was followed by the chart-topping soundtrack albums of films such as Bumbai (1995) , Dil Se.. (1998), Taal (1999), Zubeidaa (2001), and Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India (2001), which was nominated for best foreign-language film at the 2002 Academy Awards.
More recently, he worked with Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber and Shekhar Kapur (director of Elizabeth (1998)) on a musical called "Bombay Dreams." At 36 years old, A.R. Rahman has revolutionized Indian film music and one can only expect this musical genius to reach greater heights.
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The life history of AR Rahman's music career started scaling upwards 1991 onwards when began his own studio and started making music for advertisements, television channels and so on. Rahman got his very first break into the Indian film industry when film director, Mani Ratnam offered him a chance to compose music for his Tamil film, Roja at mere Rs 25,000. This movie turned out to be blockbuster hit and then there was no looking back for A.R. Rahman.
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On 1999 June 27 he rendered the song 'Ekam Satyam' alongwith International pop star Michael Jackson at a concert for underprivileged children in The Olympic Stadium in Munich, Germany. He performed along with a troupe comprising dancers Shobana and Prabhudeva. The song was sung together by Rahman and Michael Jackson. The concert was part of the 'Michael Jackson Friends' series
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In 2002, The first significant event of the year was Rahman receiving a double nomination for Lagaan at the annual Screen Awards. Rahman was nominated for both Best background Score and Best Score categories for 'Lagaan'
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On 2002 August 16, it was announced that India's leading telecom services company Bharti Teleservices had signed up Rahman as Brand Ambassador for its wireless service Airtel.

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On 2009 Jan 12, Music maestro A R Rahman, who became the first Indian to win the prestigious Golden Globe Award, dedicated it to the "billion people of A R Rahman has won original music score for 'Slumdog Millionaire'. As British Director Danny Boyle's Mumbai-based saga 'Slumdog Millionaire
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This hugely successful music composer is responsible for three of Slumdog Millionaire's ten Oscar nominations, one for Best Original Score and two for Best Song "Jai Ho" and "O Saya." The news of Slumdog and Rahman's nominations came during the much anticipated Mumbai premiere of Slumdog Millionaire 2009 Jan. 22.