ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces readers to a close look at several contemporary artists who are representative of the best and most influential people in the popular music scene in India. A. R. Rahman was born in 1967 and began learning piano at age four. His father worked in Tamil film as a film score composer and conductor, giving Rahman his first exposure to the industry. Rahman, initially interested in engineering, came to music after his father bought a synthesizer. Rahman’s success came at a perfect confluence of events. Liberalization policies, which began in the mid-1980s, had opened up India and good equipment was more easily available. In 1989, Rahman built AM Studios in Chennai, which was one of the most advanced and best-equipped sound studios in India. It consists of four buildings containing screening rooms, archives, and rooms for dozens of arrangers.
