The trend of remixing and recreating iconic tracks is not new to Bollywood. Several netizens have often criticised the practice and have even dubbed it as the ‘ruining’ of hit tracks. While this has been an old practice, it is escalating with every passing day. Now, veteran musician AR Rahman who has created some of the top chartbusters has weighed in on the issue. Rahman slammed the practice of using old songs without permission and called it ‘re-imagining.’

In his conversation with The Week, the Academy Award-winning musician opined on the issue. He said, “I believe in always following certain ethics. You can’t take a song from a movie and use it in another movie six years later, saying you are reimagining it.” He added  “You can’t reimagine people’s work without their permission. You could post it on Instagram, but certainly not make it mainstream.” AR Rahaman’s hit tracks like ‘Humma Humma’ and ‘Muqabala’ have been previously reworked. Notably, the recreated ‘Humma Song’ for ‘OK Jannu’ had Rahman as the composer. However, the musician wasn’t involved in the re-creation of his track.

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Additionally, Rahman also talked about AI Integration in music making. He weighed in on the misuse of technology which has culminated into the ‘bigger evil.’ Talking about it he said, “An even bigger evil is people misusing AI and not paying the composer even if they are borrowing his style. We need to bell this cat, because it could lead to major ethical issues. People could lose jobs.” The composer opened up about using AI but only for mastering music. “AI helps in the mastering process, but creating a tune still requires a human heart and philosophical mind. I believe the future will belong to real musicians going on stage with a guitar and a song…. I feel that, with digitisation, we will value the flaws even more―‘Oh, it’s real, see? He is out of tune.’”

As he talked about it more, the ace musician addressed using late singers Bamba Bakya and Shahul Hameed’s voices for ‘Lal Salaam.’ He said, “I was watching people recreating famous singers on Instagram when Aishwarya (director Aishwarya Rajinikanth) asked for a folk voice. I said I wished we had a voice like Shahul’s. We reached out to his family, got their approval and compensated them fairly. It is a great way to honour them, rather than just taking their work.”

Over the years, AR Rahman has created several hit music albums. These include ‘Bombay,’ ‘Dil Se,’ ‘Roja,’ ‘Rang De Basanti,’ and ‘Rockstar’ among others.