While receiving the award, a humbled Rahman said, “I have nothing but my mother and she is there with me. I thank her for making me come all this way with her blessings.”

He was born on January 6, 1966, in Madras (now Chennai), India, to a musically affluent family. Rahman (Dileep) started learning the piano at the age of four and at the age of nine, his father passed away. Since the pressure of supporting his family fell on him, he joined Ilayaraja’s troupe as a keyboard player at the age of 11. He dropped out of school as a result of this and traveled all around the world with various orchestras.

He accompanied the great tabla maestro Zakir Hussain on a few world tours and also won a scholarship at the Trinity College of Music at Oxford University, where he studied Western classical music and obtained a degree in music. Rahman embraced Islam and came to be known as AR Rahman from AS DileepKumar. In 1987, he moved to advertising, where he composed more than 300 jingles in over five years. In 1989, he started a small studio called Panchathan Record Inn, which later developed into one of the most well-equipped and advanced sound recording studios in India.