Slumdog Millionaire: Music from the Motion Picture

Copy at Case Memorial Library
Will Hermes wrote in the New York Times: "Like their international peers African artists are using digital technology to create musical hybrids and distribute them globally. At the same time Western fans of rock, rap and electronic music are using digital access to discover sounds that push familiar buttons in novel ways. Together these factors have helped dispel the notion of world music as a folk-rooted category geared strictly toward older listeners. Congolese acts like Konono No. 1 and Kasai Allstars, for example, working with European producers and artists … have connected their hypnotic, urbanized traditional music to Western fans of techno and psychedelic rock. … The most high-profile example of this new world-music trend comes not from Africa, however, but via India: the Grammy-winning hit soundtrack to the film 'Slumdog Millionaire.' Composed by A. R. Rahman, the music is modern Bollywood pop, full of digitally sequenced drums and processed vocals, raps, house music and schmaltzy balladry — and yes, some sitar" ("Changing Sounds of Africa," 3/22/09).