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Earlier today, when a visibly nervous and excited 61-year-old music composer MM Keeravani, dressed in black kurta and trousers, walked up the stage at the Beverly Hilton in LA’s Beverly Hills to accept a Golden Globe for creating the Best Original Song – Naatu Naatu, in SS Rajamouli’s 2022 blockbuster RRR, it was not only a culmination of a 25 year-long journey of creating music for films, but also a moment when a quiet, ingenuous and underrated composer found recognition on a global stage. “I am overwhelmed with this great moment happening,” he said. He followed it up by thanking his cousin SS Rajamouli, choreographer Prem Rakshith, actors Ram Charan and NT Rama Rao Jr, who danced up a storm “with so much stamina”, singer Rahul Sipligunj and Kala Bhairav (also his son) for joining hands in lifting up a piece that has had the West and many Indians dancing to its tune since its release.
Not many know that Keeravani created about 20 compositions for Naatu naatu, before getting Rajamouli and an inner circle to choose the film’s signature song. Many also do not know that Keeravani, who has done the blaring and full-throated music for RRR, also goes by the name MM Kreem and has given some gentle and very memorable melodies in the Hindi film industry in the ’90s and early 2000s, including Tum mile dil khile (Criminal, 1995), which was often mistaken as an AR Rahman piece by many. There was also Gali mein aaj chand nikla in Mahesh Bhatt’s Zakhm (1998), Sur (2002) and Jism (2003), Sudhir Mishra’s Iss Raat ki Subah Nahi (1996) and O saathiya from Saaya (2003). He also delivered some brilliance with Paheli (2005) and Sur (2002). On Spotify, he still goes by different names and those speaking Tamil and Malayalam know him as Margatha Mani, his given name, and the one he uses for credit in these two industries.
In the 90s, his different names would create much befuddlement and hilarity. As the story goes, lyricist Nida Fazli, who had written the lyrics for Sur, could not find MM Kreem in his Chennai studio because people there only knew Keeravani. A producer in the south, from whose film Keeravani had pulled out, wanted MM Kreem to do his film, not knowing he was the same man.
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 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, 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. As a guest on Gajendra Singh’s music reality show Saregama, he told Sonu Nigam, “Songs in Telugu and other languages are my bread, Hindi songs are my butter.”
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 AR Rahman was rising from 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 Keeravani, who was relatively shy and had a screen name but not much screen time. Rajamouli and his films Baahubali and RRR changed that for Keeravani, who is also now receiving fame for his background music, especially Rajamouli’s action sequences.
This win for him on an international stage is an acknowledgment of his oeuvre that spans across 220 films in various languages. On an unfamiliar stage at the Golden Globes ceremony, it was an overwhelming and emotional moment for Keeravani, who looked stunned and began his speech after a pause and continued to speak even after the music implying a winner to walk off the stage began to play. He persisted — like he has been for years to find space for his uncomplicated world of melodies – and thanked everyone he needed to before walking off the stage with his trophy.
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