NEW YORK: Most international musicians barely get noticed in the bustling Big Apple, but AR Rahman is a show-stopper — and very profitable.

Fans have paid prices of up to $1,000 (Rs47,000) for 11 concerts in North America between June 11 and July 5, which are already thought to be sold out.

Rahman’s “Jai Ho — The Journey Home Tour” begins on June 11 at New York’s fabled Nassau Coliseum where Pink Floyd performed during “The Wall Tour”. More recently, Madonna held three performances of her “Blond Ambition World Tour” in the massive Nassau Coliseum.

“It’s definitely an East-meets-West kind of show where there’s technology and tradition. Just like AR’s music, it breaks all borders,” said the show’s artistic director Amy Tinkham, who has run tours for Britney Spears, the Backstreet Boys and Mariah Carey.

Two years after Slumdog Millionaire won eight Oscars, interest in all things Indian is still going strong. Rahman’s Slumdog... soundtrack, which earned him two Academy Awards and two Grammys, has made him a recognisable name in America.

It also helps that Rahman is a prolific composer who has astaggering range. Americans find his music “easy listening” as it is brewed with an unerring feel for melody, swing and soul.
Ahead of his concert, Rahman who has been writing musical scores for Bollywood since the 1990s credited the film industry for his versatility.

“In America, they typecast a person — he is a good horror movie soundtrack composer or he is a good classical music composer. In India, the director expects everything from one person. That pushed me to compose different types of music — Indian and Western,” Rahman told DNA on the sidelines of an event in the Asia Society.

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