The Rise of Salim Sulaiman
PrintiView Author: SRIDHAR MAYUR (Hyderabad/India)
The Rise of Salim Sulaiman
Salim Merchant and Sulaiman Merchant are like the rising sons of the Indian music world. Having carved a niche for themselves, they are set out on a journey where there is no looking back. Salim has learned music from the Trinity School of Music in London. Sulaiman has learnt to play the drums and piano from different teachers and he is also self-taught. The two brothers also conduct courses for musicians and sound engineers at School of Audio Engineering, which has branches across the country.
Some years back these guys were underrated, but not anymore, that’s good news, slowly but steadily they are getting offers for good films under good banners and are getting noticed. They like AR Rahman’s music and had invited him as the guest of honor when they opened their studio in Mumbai. I was really awed by the compositions in ‘Dor’ and that was the first time I knew their talent. They’ve had a long history of BGM for RGV’s(Bhoot was a real good) and other films, until they were noticed by none other than our ‘kal-ka-putthar’ Shimit Amin to compose music for his film, he introduced them to Yash Raj, he’s the guy who directed the thrilling ‘Ab tak chappan’ and the gracious ‘Chak De! India’. ‘Chak De! India’ the film and ‘Chak De!’ the song(the phenomenon) will go down in Indian cinema’s history for the impact that they created and for the unity they had* brought in us. Some lyricists who have penned lyrics for their songs are Piyush Mehra, Jaideep Sahni and Irfan Siddique. While Piyush Mehra has penned for films like the critically acclaimed ‘Dor’, Jaideep Sahni has done it for ‘Chak De India’
and ‘RNBDJ’ and Irfan Siddique for ‘Iqbal’ and the latest ‘Fashion 2008′.
Haule haule…but rock steadily they are on a mission and keep watching for more wonderful compositions. I think the BGM for Bhoot and Ab Tak Chappan would stand out as their impressive works. Whenever I think of Ab Tak Chappan my heart plays the BGM, it had a great impact on me. Till date, all the awards they’ve won are for Best BGM but I am sure a day will come when they will walk away with accolades and awards for Music Direction too. The music of RNBDJ was a hit, but sadly the duo’s name did not come much in news for their performance, however the industry has noticed them as not part-time composers but good
composers to reckon with. Few know that they had collaborated with Ustad Zakir Hussian and Ustad Sultan Khan for different albums and early in their career they had composed for pop albums including Viva, Asmaan and Style Bhai.
They have been composing songs which are of different themes like western, folk, hindustani and sufi and apparently these songs are liked by wide range of audiences across the globe. Apart from composers they are also arrangers, programmers, percussionist and singers. One of thier rare gems is the album ‘Bhoomi’ where they had brought talent from across the country
and composed songs in seven different languages(Brujbasha, Marathi, Bengali, Assamese, Gujaratj, Dogri and Rajasthan) – a compilation that encapsulates India. This is the album where you would see Ustan Sultan Khan and Shubha Mudgal singing thier best. Thier way of handling lyrics beautifully woven into the songs was appreciated by many. They were the favourites of Nagesh Kukunoor for music composition and RGV for BGM, now its YashRaj & KJo, who have given them good recognition and work they deserve. Currently they are working on Nagesh Kukunoor’s ‘Ashayien’ and Dharma production’s untitled directed by Renzil
D’souza. The concepts look different and hope the songs would rock too.
I am listing out some of their excellent film compositions which went unnoticed mostly(Wont be suprised if there are more). Few knew they were the composers of such wonderful compositions.
Ashaayien from ‘Iqbal’
The song of the deaf & mute boy iqbal, its like what his heart speaks. Its his wish to rage and move ahead to make his dream come true. Great vocals by KK and excellent use of saxaphone to elevate the tempo. The guitar bit just thumping and moving
the song ahead. The best part is the lyrics going in sync with the beat and maintaing the rythym and feel. Wonderful song indeed.
Maule Mere Lele Meri Jaan from ‘Chak De India’
The pain of a talented hockey player who has been accused of deceit. Its his call to God and seek compliance on what he has done. Lot of sufi touch to the song, great vocals by Krishna and Salim Merchant. When you start listening to the song its just like any other song, but gradually it takes your over and awes you because the feel of the song is entirely different
from whatever you’ve seen or heard before. I would say excellent arranging and percussions. Shows the versatality of the duo.
Ye Housla from ‘Dor’
What haunts me in this song is the flute, just amazing! I wouldn’t mind saying this is my best Salim-Sulaiman song. Sung by the one and only Shafqat Amanat Ali Khan(quite underrated). This song is just not for the film, if you look at the theme… its the struggle and then the sustainability of a individual. Gives you all the resons for the struggle and makes you smile.
Finally, I leave you with…
‘Chak de!! Chak de!! Ek hockey dungi rakh khe!!’
Its been a long time, but just listen and get blown away by the impact!!!
Tags: Ab tak chhappan, Chak De! India, Dor, RNBDJ, Salim-Sulaiman
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Rahul Dholakia
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Varma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Sachin Kundalkar
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Yup, they’re quite good. Ye Honsala is my favourite as well. A haunting & mellifluous melody with some beatiful poetry. Maula Mere was another wonderful song composed by him.
Any interesting forthcoming album(s)?
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I guess they need to reinvent themselves in order to remain challenging to the likes of ARR, Vishal B, Trivedi et al. Ditto with SEL and Vishal Shekhar.
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‘O Re Piya’ is a fab track too, from ‘Aaja Nachle’.
But i’m so bloody glad u mentioned their work in ‘BHOOT’!
Now that was phenomenal!
It really was a brilliant effort…
Just thinking of the music sends a chill down my spine!
However, when I had the chance to tell them this, they undermined the score by saying, ”It’s no big deal…” and that anyone could use samples etc…
Not too sure if that was the response I was looking for!
Still amazing though, IMHO.
Cool post
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haule haule is my favouritest! liked the post a lot.
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Sridhar- yes these guys arent underrated anymore.When they were signed up by Yash Raj even I was a bit skeptical, but with Chak De & with RNBDJ, they’ve truly arrived & arrived in style.
Expecting a lot more from these two & no it need not be exactly haule haule
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yeh hausla, maula meri and aashayein are my among favorite songs!
thanks for writing a real nice article about these musicians, Sridhar.
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only they need to be a lil consistent
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Are they from a filmi family? Whats their lineage? Just for curiocity’s sake !
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i loved the ‘tujh mei rab dikhta hai’ song… wonderful melody
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Iqbal,Fashion had some good songs but RNBDJ was crap
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@Vishal – Not sure of any albums, but as I mentioned above they got Renzil’s and Nagesh Kukunoor’s next in thier kitty.
@Amit – I agree, they are not the best right now, but they’ve just started as composers, I mean song composing. Lets wait and watch.
@Steve – Thanks dude, and yep BHOOT really scared me too. Awesome BGM.
@Magik – Thank you bro. Haule haule is one of my favorites too. I like the bit…’Ishqe ke di galiya tang hai, sharmo sharmili rang hai, khud se khud ki yeh kaise jung hai’
@Sethu – Macha, as I wrote in my post…Haule Haule, but rock steadily, thats more important na…
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@Nadi – Thank you
@Indraneel – I was not really impressed with Fashion. As they say it takes learning, experiences and methods to succeed, lets see how they would perform now that they have arrived.
@Sanjeev – Not really sure. I hope someone could provide the info. I am interested in knowing too.
@crazyrals – Oh ya..wonderful song, I had that song in the list, I love Roop Kumar Rathod’s vocals in the song. Couldn’t add it coz I dint find the Youtube link for it.
@sharath – I defer bro…Iqbal, RNBDJ had some wonderful songs but Fashion was a let down. Chalo light, thats your choice.
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Its good to see that someone took notice of these two great composers on PFC.
They did a fantastice job last year with RNBDJ and Fashion.
All the songs of fashion were cool and breezy. Only four sound tracks yet they are still on the charts.
Dor was a materpiece and so was Chak De !!!
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Dor, CDI & RNBDJ had all hit songs, Iqbal and Fashion were not so great overall, and BGM of Bhoot was really scary. Good write-up Shridhar. It was time someone wrote about them, and bring their talent to the fore. Im sure with this, many at PFC wud alo be enlightened abt the work done by these two promising guys.
hope to get many more such enthralling music from them. keep us posted abt anything latest from them.
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Mar jawa from fashion was really impressive
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In Iqbal soundtrack they only composed two songs: Aashayien & Slow Version – Aashayein. It was a compilation album. That had music by Himesh, Sukhwidner, Om-The Fusion Band. Not sure about who did BGM of Iqbal.
They are not underrated. They are not good at composing songs.. they have composed some really good songs like Aashayein… but they are far few…
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The music of Fashion was awesome – definitely one of the best albums of the year. And completely in sync with the feel of the movie.
RNBDJ was good too.
Sadly, their work this year was completely overlooked – they werent even nominated at the recent Filmfare awards.
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As far as i remember When A R Rahman went to take first filmfare award this year, he mentioned “salim suleman” and “Amit”.
It seems they have impreesed the maestro also.
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Talking about RNBDJ…one song that escapes everyone is Phir milenge chalte chalte. Agreed – the medley is one of the most done to death song filming concepts but what freshness this duo brought to the concept thru this song. The skill in tying all those loose beads into a necklace was awesome.
And before I get any brickbats for this one, this statement is not meant as praise for the film (which I hated), choreography in the song (pedestrian), picturisation (again…pedestrian) or anything. Its purely a praise for the score.
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Good Post.
I think O re Piya From Aaja Nachale is a track which ha snot get due recognition.
Rab Ne i think was good because of lyrics by Jaideep Sahni.
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They are using this article for their media kit
http://www.salimsulaiman.com/media.html
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My dear music duo brothers Salim and Sulaiman,
You have rocked Indian film music since a couple of years. Some of your best music in films like – Aaja Nachale, Rab Ne Banadi Jodi, Chakde India, Dor,are just beyond words. I am at a loss for words. Haormonium (Peti) is used so lovely, that we senior citizens are amazed! Long live you brothers. And you, my dear Salim – you are so well treating young aspirants in INDIAN IDOL with such a love and warmth. We love you and your talents.
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Haule Haule is one of the most mind blowing compositions….even dor and chak de India are awesome……
good work brothers……..looking forward to more of your compositons and songs(salim singing)
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im bigest fan of salim-sulaimqan
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