India’s highest-paid singer quit school at 9 to support family, faced acute poverty, wanted to end his life, now earns…

As the Indian music industry is growing, playback singers and other artistes now charge a whopping amount per song. Many popular singers charge Rs 20 lakh and more per song, however, the highest-paid singer charges Rs 3 crore per song. 

The singer we are talking about started his career at the age of 9 and has now become a global star and enjoys a huge fan following. He is none other than AR Brahman. 

AR Rahman was born as AS Dileep Kumar in Tamil Nadu's Madras in 1967.  His father RK Shekhar was also a film score composer and conductor for Tamil and Malayalam films. Rahman was drawn to music since childhood and started learning how to play piano at the age of 4. At 9, the singer and composer lost his father due to an unknown illness. This left him in great grief and his family had to face financial crisis. 

It was then when his mother made him leave his studies to focus on music and he took up the burden of household responsibilities. He used to play piano professionally to support his family. A few years after leaving school, he was admitted in college, but then he dropped out of college to pursue a music career. After dropping out of college, he formed his band and then also wrote jingles for many advertisements. Reportedly, he had written jingles for about 300 advertisements.

AR Rahman said in an interview that up until 25, he used to have suicidal thoughts and wanted to end his life. He told PTI in an interview, “Up until 25, I used to think about suicide. Most of us feel they are not good enough. Because I lost my father, there was this void... There were so many things happening. (But) that in a way made me more fearless. Death is a permanent thing for everyone. Since everything created has an expiry date, so why be afraid of anything?” 

He got his first break in films from the Tamil film 'Roja'. His songs in this film were liked a lot by the audience. Once he started composing songs for films, AR Rahman's career started gaining momentum. He won the Oscar Award for his songs in the 2008 film Slumdog Millionaire. He also scored music for Bollywood films like Dil Se…, Taal, Rang De Basanti, Swades, Jodha Akbar, Jaane Tu…Yaa Jaane Naa and more. 

Though he lived in acute poverty in his childhood, he is now the highest-paid singer in India. He is a winner of six National Film Awards, two Academy Awards, two Grammy Awards, and a BAFTA Award. According to reports, AR Rahman charges Rs 3 crore per song and has a whopping net worth is a whopping Rs 1748 crore making him richer than some of the young actors in the industry.