Mani Ratnam’s OK Kanmani is one of the most expected films this year down south for reasons more than one. Music wiz AR Rahman’s collaboration with Mani Ratnam is of course why its generating a lot of buzz. Even before the recent music launch of the film, tracks like Kaara Aattakkaaraa crooned by Darshana KT and Mental Manadhil by Jonita Gandhi had begun racing up the music charts.
Check out the OK Kanmani playlist here:
Popular Tamil film website Behindwoods.com has rated Rahman’s OST for OK Kanmani at 3.75 out of 5, calling it ‘classy and contemporary’. Film critic Baradwaj Rangan calls the album ‘nice-ish’ while writing for The Hindu. He says, “It didn’t make me wince the way the soundtracks for Lingaa and Kochadaiyaan did. It didn’t activate every single one of my pleasure centres the way the soundtrack for I did. It’s somewhere in the middle.”
At a recent media interaction, AR Rahman reminisced on his collaboration with Mani Ratnam since Roja and their new film.
It’s an extension of love. I have got everything in my life, working with Mani Ratnam and Roja. I am still committed...OK Kanmani is a very young album. It’s got very traditional kind of songs.
– AR Rahman
Darshana KT who has sung the lead vocals for five songs in the Tamil and Telugu (OK Bangaram), “The album first of all sounds fresh and young and so vibrant. You can almost relate to any song you pick,” she says talking to The Quint. The singer picks her personal favourite saying, “My favourite would be Kaara…the first song I recorded for this album. Luckily ARR was himself there recording me. He said ‘I want you to sound like never before”.
Listen to the track here:
Darshana recollects her experience of singing Kaara Aattakkara. “While recording he said, ‘now let’s try something new with this song! Have you rapped before?’ I said no. He smiled and said –‘ well now go ahead and rap those lines.’ The energy level of the song was so high, it was a wonderful experience,” she divulges.
Ashok Parwani, Associate Director-Marketing, Sony Music, terms the music of OK Kanmani as definitely one of the best tracks of Rahman in recent times. “Within 15 minutes of us releasing the album, it had topped the charts on iTunes all over India”, he says.
OK Kanmani starring Dulquer Salmaan and Nitya Menen is slated to release on April 17th.
You can watch AR Rahman talk about the music of OK Kanmani here:
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)