Oscar-winning composer A.R. Rahman, known for his cryptic social media posts, is winning the internet again with a tweet. The maestro quote-tweeted an user, who shared a video of Sting’s apparent unease over the live performance of his song.
“Sting watching his song getting murdered live on stage,” the Twitter user wrote. "I’ve been there," Rahman responded, with a laugh emoji.
In the old video which has resurfaced, Sting is spotted in the audience grimacing as José Feliciano recreated his song Every Breath You Take at the 2017 Polar Music Prize ceremony.
It is no secret that Rahman does not take remixes of old classics lightly. In 2022, Rahman had lashed out at the “remix culture” terming it “distorted”. “Who are you to re-imagine? I am also very careful of taking someone else’s work. You have to be respectful and I think it is a grey area, we need to sort it out,” Rahman had said in an interview during the promotions for Ponniyin Selvan-I.
In 2020, Rahman had vented his ire over the remake of his 2009 hit Masakali from Delhi-6, sung by Mohit Chauhan. The song Masakali 2.0, featuring Sidharth Malhotra and Tara Sutaria, had been recreated by Tanishk Bagchi and sung by Tulsi Kumar and Sachet Tandon. Soon after the teaser of the new version of the song was released, Rahman took to Twitter to express his displeasure.
He shared the original song with the note, “No shortcuts, properly commissioned, sleepless nights, writes and re-writes. Over 200 musicians, 365 days of creative brainstorming with the aim to produce music that can last generations. A team of a director, a composer and a lyricist supported by actors, dance directors and a relentless film crew. Lots of love and prayers, A.R. Rahman.”
He also took to Instagram to post an image of a man on fire. “The strongest man is he who is able to control his anger,” he wrote in the caption.
Rahman was not happy either about the new version of his 1995 hit Humma Humma, created by Tanishk Bagchi and Badshah for the film OK Jaanu (2017). He was initially sceptical about the remake but gave in to director Shaad Ali’s request. The music legend was not very enthused about the remix version of Ishwar Allah that was used in Omung Kumar’s film PM Narendra Modi (2019).
