Alka Yagnik recounts decling to associate with AR Rahman on Mani Ratnam’s “Roja”

Alka Yagnik recounts decling to associate with AR Rahman on Mani Ratnam’s “Roja”

Alka Yagnik recently recalled how she and Kumar Sanu underestimated AR Rahman when he first approached them to sing songs for Roja. The playback singer confessed she regretted her decision later.
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No doubt AR Rahman with time emerged as one of the most renowned music composers in the world. However, there was a time when Rahman was still a budding artiste and singers from Bollywood often declined to associate with him, asking, “Who is AR Rahman? Why should we ditch our friends for an unknown name?” Recently, veteran playback singer Alka Yagnik recounted a similar incident, which now is regretted by her and Kumar Sanu who ruled the music industry in the 80’s and 90’s.

In an interview recently, Alka recounted the time when Rahman approached her for the first time. She said, at that time around AR Rahman was a new name and nobody, especially in Mumbai knew him. Down south, he was well known. He was a very young boy then. She received a call from Chennai at that time saying that there is a new composer called AR Rahman. He is her fan and is composing songs for a film and he wants her and Kumar Sanu to sing the entire soundtrack. But the problem was that he wanted her to come immediately. But, her dates were booked for a long time. Plus, the fact that she had worked with the composers in Mumbai so much and had built a rapport that she never wanted to ditch them. Moreover, she didn’t know who AR Rahman and his caliber.

The singer went on to add that added, she then called up Sanu and told him, that she received a phone call from Chennai.’ He was like, ‘Yes, even he did and that he won’t sing for them. He has already allotted dates to others and how could he ditch them? God knows who this composer is. He has never heard the name AR Rahman or his songs and won’t be going to Chennai. Even he was like when she has committed dates to others, she can’t drop them. So, she said to them, ‘Sorry, she cannot come.’ So like that she lost the opportunity. Later, when she heard the songs, she wanted to bang her head on the wall as they were beautiful songs.

Alka Yagnik then recalled her first collaboration with AR Rahman. The next time when she collaborated with Rahman, the moment he met her, he was like, she didn’t sing his older songs.’ Alka felt so embarrassed and wanted to bury herself inside the land. It was entirely her big loss in losing a song of a composer of the status of A R Rahman.

In another interview, Yagnik recalled collaborating with Rahman for Taal. Sharing her experience working with Rahman, the playback singer said, she was called around 9 something in the evening, till 12 midnight there was no sign of either AR Rahman or anybody.

Then a little after 2 am he came, absolutely fresh as if he had just woken up and both of us (Alka and Subhash) were like this (enacts getting tired). He is man of few words, he always has this smile on his face. She always saw something divine about his face. Every time he looked at her, she felt calm and nice. The vibes he gave were very calm and soothing,” added the singer, who sang three songs in the film, “Kariye Naa”, “Ramta Jogi” and “Taal Se Taal”.

News Edit K.V.Raman