As a tribute to AR Rahman on his birthday, January 6, a capella band Chord 7 recorded a mash-up of five songs by the legend, which was uploaded on their YouTube channel. Joining the six band members was playback singer Jyotsana. The songs in the medley are ‘Mangalyam...’ ( Alaipayuthe ), ‘Yuhi chala raahi...’ ( Swades ), ‘Dil se...’ ( Dil Se ), ‘Roo Ba Roo...’ ( Rang De Basanti ) and ‘O hum dum...’ ( Saathiya ). “As is with each of Rahman’s songs, the programming is rich and it was difficult especially since we were adapting it in this format,” says Tony Daniel, a band member. That all of them are fans of Rahman made zeroing in on the project easy, Jyotsana is also a friend who agreed when she heard of the project. The song was released by singer Benny Dayal, on January 3. Formed on January 1, 2019, the band comprises six members Anish Bruce, Anish Varghese, Tony, James Paul, Jibu John and Shiju Mathew who got together out of their love for music. Since the band members work in different places across the country most of the co-ordination, practice and arrangements happened via Whatsapp until recording. The video is stylish and the band has done a good job with the songs, especially adapting it to this format. This is the band’s third video/song. It was mixed by Hentry Kuruvilla, who is also Rahman’s mixing engineer. The mashup has met with a good response but the band is looking forward to getting AR Rahman to listen to their tribute to him.
