AR Rahman

Danny Boyle's Slumdog Milionaire, about a scrappy Bombay street urchin, makes a perfect fit for M.I.A., a South Asian musical rabble-rouser who highlights the world's have-nots in unconventional club tracks. In addition to dropping "Paper Planes" here, she also appears on the opening "O...Saya," a rush of percussion and voices raised high. A.R. Rahman, the celebrated Bombay soundtrack composer, is the real star here, with an album score that ranges from hynoptic trip-hop ("Riots") to unusual crunk ("Gangsta Blues") to wide-screen immersion in strings and tribal drums.

Like the film. the soundtrack to Slumdog Millionaire is all curry-flavored ghetto
fabulousness. M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes" makes a cameo, but the star of the album is the
songwriter who M.I.A. calls "the Indian Timbaland": A.R. Rahman. Rahman — unknown here,
but one of the world's top-selling artists — juxtaposes the folk sounds of Mumbai's slums
with the techno of its city streets. On opening track "O . . . Saya," tribal drummin... More >