MM Keeravani sings a rousing speech as Naatu Naatu makes history at Oscars

Dressed in a bottle green kurta and trousers, a visibly chuffed MM Keeravani, the song’s composer held the golden knight and thanked his cousin and director Rajamouli through the Carpenters song, On top of the world for his headliner moment. “I grew up listening to The Carpenters, here I am with the Oscars,” said Keeravani before breaking into a parody of the famed song, “There was only one wish on my mind, so was Rajamouli’s and my family’s, RRR has to win, pride of every Indian and must put me on top of the world,” sang Keeravani as actor Deepika Padukone, looking stunning in a black Louis Vuitton gown, welled up.

Watch the live #Oscars performance of #RRR‘s “Naatu Naatu” from inside the Dolby Theatre, along with director S. S. Rajamouli pic.twitter.com/EQ9aLz0c0y

— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) March 13, 2023

Only minutes earlier, the song’s singers Rahul Sipligunj and Kala Bhairava (also Keeravani’s son), were on stage for a two-and-a-half-minute performance on the Dolby Theatre’s illustrious stage as a very talented troupe of dancers, two of them dressed like Ram Charan and NTR Rao Junior from RRR. While the two singers lip-synched a specially recorded shorter sequence for the Oscars, the dancers built up a storm on Hollywood Boulevard. The choreography was almost exactly like the original piece, fast-paced and very well done for a live concert. It isn’t often that one sees Hollywood biggies shake a leg to the beats of a parai (frame drum) in a Telugu song. Naatu Naatu got the party going. Just like it has for almost a year now, with the world dancing in theatre aisles and giving much love to the hook step through Tiktok and Instagram videos.

The high-octane global sensation, Naatu Naatu (meaning Naacho naacho in Hindi) has become the first Indian film song to score the coveted award and bring the prestigious golden knight home. The Oscar won by AR Rahman for Slumdog Millionaire in the same category was for Danny Boyle-directed British production loosely based on Vikas Swaroop’s novel Q&A besides being filmed in India. What’s interesting, however, is that Rahman in 2008 had two of the three nominations (Jai ho and O saaya), the only other being the Wall E song, Down to earth, by Peter Gabriel and Thomas Newman. The song won a Grammy in the same year in the same category. While Jai ho may have been called a better song by critics, Naatu Naatu has fought formidable competition to allow India to have its global moment.

The win for the Telugu number, shot for 15 days in front of the Ukranian Parliament and Meriinskyi Palace – the official residence of the President of Ukraine, besides putting India and Telugu cinema under the spotlight and giving Keeravani due credit for his 25-year-career, portends something more significant – it has managed to buck the usual trends and break past the glass ceiling that previously seemed impenetrable: a simple-enough number has had many and especially the West in thrall.

“It’s a song that everyone can enjoy and this award will be significant,” Chennai-based Carnatic vocalist and National Award-winning playback singer P Unnikrishnan, who’s worked with Keeravani on a number of songs, told The Indian Express.

The song’s roots lie in Kuthu – a percussion-based street folk dance and music genre used often in Tamil and Telugu cinema. Full of traditional folk and fervour, the largely instrumental, layered music, often on a parai and nadaswaram would accompany wedding and funeral processions back in the day and had a bunch of marginalised communities performing it as a job.

The South industries adapted and added vocals to this fast-paced style, after which there was a beeline of such songs, especially in Tamil and Telugu cinema. “If you look at many Tamil and Telugu films, we have seen many similar kind of these fast-paced songs. This is probably something that West did not notice earlier. In case of Naatu Naatu it’s the combination of the picturisation, fantastic choreography, catchy music and, of course, marketing – when everything comes together so perfectly, that’s what gives it the excitement that it has attained,” said Unnikrishnan.

Born in a Telugu family in Kovvur in Andhra Pradesh, to painter, lyricist and screenwriter Koduri Siva Shakthi Datta and his wife Bhanumathi, Keeravani began learning to play the violin when he was four. Growing up on a steady diet of film songs on the radio, especially RD Burman, at the age of 10 Keeravani was travelling with a band from Kakinada and would often perform Laxmikant Pyarelal’s Ek pyar ka nahgma hai on the violin. His uncle (father’s brother) V Vijayendra Prasad was also a screenwriter and Keervani began his career in 1987 as an assistant to music composers K Chakravarthy and C Rajamani.

His first film as an independent composer was TSBK Moulee’s Telugu film Manasu Mamatha (1990), followed by Ram Gopal Verma’s Telugu thriller Kshana Kshanam (1991), which suddenly put the spotlight on him. Verma was very excited after he found that Keervani was a Stephen King fan and he would be to able get a slightly spectral tone to his film. The King effect is also seen in the haunting Tum mile dil khile sung by Kumar Sanu and Alka Yagnik, and the eerie alaap by KS Chithra. “He is a true composer, an authentic and a complete musician. He is also a singer himself and plays many instruments besides being classically trained, which is significant to his work,” says Unnikrishnan.

What cemented his position in the music industry were also the 20 songs in the Telugu film Annamayya (1997), about 15th-century composer Annamacharya. Keervani won the National Award for the same, besides many state awards. This was also the time when Rahman was coming up in the Tamil industry and extending himself as easily in Hindi film music with blockbuster tunes. To be overshadowed in the Rahman wave was easy for the relatively reticent Keeravani. Rajamouli and his films Baahubali and RRR changed that for Keeravani, who is now receiving fame for his background music, especially Rajamouli’s action sequences.

Keervani, known as MM Kreem in the Hindi film industry, has often been known for soft romantic numbers such as Gali mein aaj chand nikla in Mahesh Bhatt’s Zakhm (1998), and those in Sur (2002) and Jism (2003) and Sudhir Mishra’s Iss Raat ki Subah Nahi (1996). Naatu naatu is one of the few high-powered numbers by him. Rajamouli, in a Vanity Fair video, explained his brief to choreographer Prem Rakshith about the song and dance sequence that is to take place after a Britisher insults the two Indians, calling them brown buggers. “I told him that yes, for the audience this is a song, this is fun and they are dancing and everything but for the story, it’s actually a fight scene… in effect, you are getting the emotion of a fight.”