The Maestro has made us proud again. After last year’s success at the Academy awards, A. R. Rahman continued his international award winning streak by grabbing 2 Grammy awards for Slumdog Millionaire — One for best compilation soundtrack for a motion picture and another for best motion picture song (Jai Ho). Rahman beat biggies like Steve Jordan (Cadillac Records) and Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds) to bag the award in the best compilation soundtrack for a motion picture category. In the Best Song category, Rahman’s rivals included Bruce Springsteen for his song The Wrestler, from the Oscar-nominated movie of the same name.
Other Indians who were in the run for the Grammy, Zakir Hussain (Best Classical Crossover Album) and Ustad Amjad Ali Khan (Best Traditional World Music Album) unfortunately lost out. Two other people who shared the best motion picture song Grammy with Rahman were Gulzar and Tanvi Shah, who respectively penned the Hindi and Spanish lyrics for Jai Ho. This win takes Rahman into the elite league of the precious few Indians to have won the Grammy, some of the others being Pt. Ravi Shankar, Zakir Hussain, Pt. Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Vikku Vinayakram, L Shankar and the half-Indian who is Norah Jones. “This is insane, God is great again,” Rahman said as he accepted his second award before a VIP audience. Admitting that he had ‘never even dreamt about winning all these awards..’, Rahman thanked his well wishers for inspiring him to greater success. “And all my well wishers from the world who keep me going… Jai ho India…!”
hi shukhti,
thanx for the comment. to be differing from your point however, vikku had won the grammy in 91 alongside Mickey Hart for Planet Drum project, the same album for which Zakir Hussain won his first Grammy. Vikku wasn’t the main man behind the album and hence might be missing in some of the credits, just like in Slumdog most people are only talking of Rahman and not Gulzar and Tanvi. Similarly, L Shankar won a Grammy alongside others for his score for one of the songs in the album Passion – Sources, done for the Scorsese movie The Last Temptation of Christ. Again Peter Gabriel was the main guy who was credited for the award. This is the information we found from various sources of course, on the basis of which I posted it. And btw Zakir Hussain has two Grammy awards, one for each edition of the Global Drum Project – 1991, and last year. 🙂
First Ravi Shankar – 3 Grammy
Second Vishwa Mohan Bhatt 1 Grammy
Third Zakir Hussain 1 Grammy
Fourth A R Rahman 2 Grammy
For accuracy please visit http://www.grammy.com and check out for yourselves
Vikku Vinayakram and L. Shankar did not win any Grammy. Please check out the Grammy web page
As he says, it is really insane to see that the one single song which celebrates a happy ending climax changed everything and reverberates all over the globe!!!
And the journey still continues! Jai Ho!!!