Rahman’s Infinite Love

He has not stopped making music for even a brief period. It is this that perhaps made AR Rahman's fans nearly forget that the musician had not released a solo album or single for 14 years. That, however, changed with the announcement of his new single, Infinite Love, which has been shot in Africa, Hong Kong, India and the US. The song (originally written in English, has a Hindi version too) talks about matters that he has cared about and has touched upon throughout his career — love, peace and unity.

The focus of this single, however, is more the artiste's concerns with the boundaries that he believes have been created everywhere. "Collective consciousness can change destiny," he said, following the unveiling of the single at the Dhirubhai Ambani International School in Mumbai last week. "In oneness, many good things happen and humanity has proved this before. But now, we have borders in our minds about everything — race, religion and nationality." Eventually, he says, the song will find its way onto an EP, one that will deal with "branches of the same theme".

In recent times, much like every other music project Rahman has ever been associated with, his music for Jab Tak Hai Jaan and the upcoming Tamil film Kadal have been the topics of discussion. While the former was not particularly well-received, the latter has been much more so. The fate of Jab Tak Hai Jaan's music, however, he attributes to the fact that "expectations were sky high". "Aditya Chopra and Yashji (the late filmmaker) loved the tunes, so we went with their taste."

Film projects apart, one of the many things that brought Rahman into the spotlight this year was his association with Mick Jagger and other artistes for a project titled "SuperHeavy". Jagger, Rahman, Joss Stone, Dave Stewart and Damian Marley came together to form the band that eventually released a self-titled album in September, to mostly positive reviews. Since then, there has been little activity on that front. "'SuperHeavy' was hot and we got invitations from all over the world, but some of our members became very busy with other projects," he says.

ALSO READ

A New Territory

Sanjay Dutt casts O P Ralhan's grandson in Hasmukh Pighal Gaya

Jimmy Shergill walks the ramp for charity

I have always tried to do different things, says Divya Dutta