"It was a nice time to meet him."
AR Rahman recently recalled his meeting with Michael Jackson in 2009.
He reminisced: “In 2009, the beginning, I was in Los Angeles. I was with my agent.
“And he introduced me to another agent. He said, ‘He’s my friend. He manages Michael Jackson’.
“I tested the waters and asked, ‘Can I meet Michael Jackson?’
“And he said, ‘Ah yes, sure. I will send out an email’.
“There was no response in the first week. I was just quiet and then I said, ‘Fine’.”
AR Rahman added that things changed when he was nominated for an Oscar.
He went on to win ‘Best Original Score’ for Slumdog Millionaire (2008).
The composer also bagged the Oscar for ‘Best Original Song’ for ‘Jai Ho‘.
Rahman continued: “Then the nomination happened – I got nominated for the Oscars.
“The email came in and it said, ‘Michael Jackson wants to meet you’.
“But I said, ‘No, I don’t want to meet him now. If I will win the Oscars, I will meet him. Otherwise, I am not going to meet him’.
“So, I was sure that I was going to win an Oscar. So I won the Oscar.
“The next day, I went to meet Michael Jackson. He was in the house, in LA. My driver dropped me.
“It was almost 6:30 pm. The sun was going down. And then somebody opened the door, with the gloves on.
“I was high – I had won two Oscars there. I felt on top of the world.
“It was a nice time to meet him. He was very kind.
“He said, ‘Oh, I love the songs, what chords did you program?’
“He was talking about world peace and he kept asking, ‘Why don’t we do the next ‘We Are The World’?’
“So all that happened. Michael Jackson introduced me to his kids.
“And I was jet-lagged, working day and night. I was waiting to go to India.
“So we had two hours. And he told me, ‘When I dance, I dance with my heart’. It was unforgettable.”
Incidentally, Michael Jackson passed away in 2009. In March of that year, he announced a comeback tour titled This Is It.
The concerts were due to begin in London on July 8.
However, Michael passed away on June 25, plunging millions of fans into mourning.
On the work front, AR Rahman recently scored the Netflix film Amar Singh Chamkila (2024).
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