While Artificial Intelligence in the entertainment industry continues to be a hot topic leading to heated discussions, the renowned music composer AR Rahman has taken a significant step in legitimately using AI for music composition in his upcoming movie album. Rahman revealed that with the help of AI, he used the voice models of late singer Bamba Bakya and Shahul Hameed to compose the track “Thimiri Yezhuda” for the upcoming movie Lal Salaam. 

Rahman revealed that the voices of the late singers were brought back to life using Timeless Voices AI, a music platform that strives to preserve the voices of legendary artists using AI. The musician further explained that the team had obtained prior permission from the singers’ families and were also remunerated for utilising the voice algorithms. “Technology is not a threat and a nuisance if we use it right,” he said.

Even though various netizens considered this an instrumental step towards using cutting-edge technology like AI in films, this news has drawn mixed responses from the audience. One of the X users recently criticised the composer, asking if the consent of families can be assumed as the consent of the late singers. “What if Bamba Bakya or Shahul Hameed just didn’t want this and rather wanted to rest in peace?” he asked.

Late singer Shahul Hameed was the voice behind many iconic songs of AR Rahman from the 90s, like ‘Usilampatti Penkutti’ from Gentleman, ‘Urvasi Urvasi’ from Kadhalan, ‘Vaarayo Thozhi’ from Jeans, etc. The singer passed away in a car crash near Chennai in 1997. 

Late Singer Bamba Bakya rose to fame for his soul-stirring singing in tracks like ‘Kedakkari’ from Raavanan, ‘Ponni Nadhi’ from Ponniyin Selvan etc. The singer passed away from a cardiac arrest in 2022.

The lyrics of the song ‘Thimiri Yezhuda’ was penned by Snehan. The song is an upbeat folk number with female vocals from singers Deepthi Suresh and Akshaya Shivkumar. Directed by Aishwarya Rajinikanth, Lal Salaam is a political drama starring Vikranth and Vishnu Vishal in the lead and superstar Rajinikanth in an extended cameo.