Tamil Composers Rock Tollywood

Move over DSP and Thaman, it seems to be the season of Tamil composers in Tollywood. With maestro, A R Rahman set to score music for a much-hyped straight Telugu film featuring Ram Charan and directed by Buchi Babu, while Anirudh Ravichandar, who is basking in the glory of ‘Jailer’, is composing music for another big ticket Telugu film 'Devara' starring superstar Jr NTR. Anirudh is also in talks to compose for Vijay Devarakonda's 12th film to be directed by Gautam Tinnanuri.

Meanwhile, talented musician G V Prakash Kumar has belted out tunes for the Telugu film ‘Tiger Nageswara Rao’ to give Telugu composers a run for their money.

“Tamil composer G V Prakash is composing music for a straight Telugu film ‘Tiger Nageswara Rao’ for the first time. We approached him when director Vamsee felt that he would be apt for our action adventure. He is very talented and quite professional too. He gave us more than what we expected to make our film musically enriching,” says Abhishek Agarwal, producer of ‘Tiger Nageswara Rao’.

Earlier, Tamil composer Ghibran composed music for Kalyan Ram's 'Amigos' and Yuvan Shankar Raja belted out tunes for Naga Chaitanya's starrer 'Custody'. While composer Hip Hop Tamizha worked for ‘Agent’ and Harris Jayaraj set to dish out tunes for a Telugu film with Sharwanand. “A few Telugu composers have become lethargic a bit and are unwilling to try out something new. They are discussing their payments before discussing the story and it is bound to affect the music quality. Tamil composers are going to be a big threat to Telugu composers in the days to come,” says a top producer on condition of anonymity.

However, director Hemanth Madhukar rules out any threat to Tollywood composers. “Leading Telugu composers will retain their place among music lovers since they have proved their mettle. Actually, Telugu filmmakers have been roping in Tamil composers for many decades. It started with K V Mahadevan. Later, maestro Illayaraja ruled the roost in Telugu films in the 80s and 90s. However, Telugu composers like Chakravarthy and Raj-Koti had their own space and work. So a threat to local talent is just a myth,” he informs.

On the comeback of ace composers A R Rahman and Anirudh Ravichaner in Tollywood, he says, “We are glad that A R Rahman and Anirudh are returning to Tollywood to enthrall music lovers. They are masters in belting out rocking tunes and also for their elegant background scores. Till now, both didn’t get the right film in Telugu but now they will be raring to go,” he adds.

With some films like ‘Vikram’ and ‘Jailer’ being appreciated for their swashbuckling background score over tunes, he explains, “Even Rajnisir talked about this at an event of his film Jailer. He claimed that he initially felt ‘Jailer’ was an average film but with Anirudh’s theme music and background score, the film was catapulted to the next level and it turned out to be a sensational hit. Nowadays background music has become important over songs in certain kinds of movies,” Hemanth concludes.

On Tamil composers drawing anywhere between Rs 6 to 12 crores, he reasons, "It is nobody's business to discuss remunerations since it is confined to a particular producer and composer. In the tinsel town, no one pays a rupee more than what one deserves.'