A.R. Rahman to Collaborate with YouTube Stars
Fellow composers Salim-Sulaiman, Mithoon and Clinton Cerejo will also tie up with YouTube India for the project called Jammin’
Satya Raghavan, Head of Entertainment, YouTube India, Clinton Cerejo, Salim, AR Rahman, Sulaiman, Mithoon, Samir Bangera, Cofounder MD, QYUKI and the YouTube creators. Photo: Chetna Vaidyanathan for Rolling Stone India
Celebrated composer, singer and multi-instrumentalist A.R. Rahman will be collaborating with YouTube India on Jammin’, an online project that aims to join the worlds of Bollywood and YouTube. With the first video set to release on August 19th, Jammin’ will match leading Bollywood music composers with some of the country’s biggest YouTube artists to create original content.
The digital venture has been initiated by media network Qyuki, co-founded by Rahman. “I think things are changing,” Rahman said about the development of the project. “There were many ideas floating around like ”˜Let’s do a talent hunt,’ but I said a talent hunt has been done to death and I’m not even interested.”
Jammin’ will rope in The YouTube creators such as pop band SANAM, singers Shraddha Sharma, Jonita Gandhi, Arjun Kanungo, Sanah Moidutty and Siddharth Slathia, folk-fusion act Maati Baani, a cappella group Raaga Trippin and hip-hop crew Mumbai’s Finest. They will be collaborating with four of Bollywood’s top composers: Rahman, Salim-Sulaiman, Mithoon and Clinton Cerejo . Each YouTube star will be paired with one composer to create an original song and music video for the Jammin’ YouTube channel. Jammin’ will then release one music video a week from August 19th till November 11th. The online series will culminate with a concert at the NSCI Dome in Mumbai. “We’re going to learn from the younger people, they’re going to probably take some advice from us, but we’re going to create music,” Rahman says.
Adds Samir Bangara, co-founder and MD of Qyunki, “Jammin’ represents Qyuki’s vision of empowering creators to challenge the status quo and we are super stoked to launch the first ever mega collaboration between the world of Bollywood and YouTube stars.”
With the first music video scheduled to release next week, the artist are excited about what a collaboration of this scale means for independent artists as well as the urban audience that relies on the internet for entertainment. Says Rahman,“In these troubled times, one song can change people’s lives. YouTube has created an amazing platform for artists to reach their audiences and independent creators need the backing of a partner to bring discoverability and scale to their talent.”
Watch A. R. Rahman talk about the thought process that let to the conceptualization of Jammin’ below:
