Jack Sparrow
RRR’: Tollywood’s 1st Oscar Winner! (Naatu Naatu Song Oscar)
In India’s interpretation of the Cinderella tale, “Naatu Naatu” became the first song from a Tollywood film to win the best original song at the Oscars, beating out superstars like Lady Gaga and Rihanna.
The award was given to famous composer (Naatu Naatu Song Oscar)M.M. Keeravani and lyricist Chandrabose, who jointly created the film’s score and all of the songs. Their victory came after a highly charged song-and-dance performance of “Naatu Naatu,” which was widely regarded as one of the telecast’s highlights this year.
Keeravani wowed the crowd
Keeravani wowed the crowd by singing a large portion of his acceptance speech to a Carpenters classic. He introduced himself by saying, “I grew up listening to the Carpenters and now here I am with the Oscars,” before starting to sing the tune of the ’70s pop hit “Top of the World”: “‘RRR’ needs to win, pride of every Indian, and must put me on top of the globe,” was all that was going through my head.
Golden Globe (Naatu Naatu Song Oscar)
Even before it won the Golden Globe for best song in January, “Naatu Naatu” was considered a front-runner and had strong odds of winning. The song “Naatu Naatu” serves as both “the first song ever from an Indian production to be nominated for an Oscar” and “a real banger,” as presenter Deepika Padukone stated earlier in her introduction of the live performance of the song.
As social media users imitated the “hook step” choreography seen in footage published prior to the movie’s American premiere, it became the year’s most popular movie-music meme.
Keeravani and Chandrabose
Indeed, Keeravani and Chandrabose are not the first Indians to take home the prize for best song. The song “Jai Ho” from the movie “Slumdog Millionaire” won the 2019 Oscar for best song, making composer A.R. Rahman a double victory. But despite its Indian setting, “Slumdog” was a British production. Rahman has been among many praising the historical significance of “Naatu Naatu” and congratulating the venerable Keeravani for facilitating what has been referred to as “a paradigm shift” for Indian film abroad.
Keeravaani claimed in an interview with Variety that the song’s beat was a major factor in its success. The composer explained, “The beat is 6/8 — that’s not very usually heard from the West, but more frequently heard from India, and sometimes from Africa, and nations like that. “To be more precise, it’s more of a South Indian beat than a North Indian beat. And in “Naatu Naatu,” this beat took on a new dimension and a level of BPM that is incredibly uncommon in the West. So, that was essentially what caught the Western audience’s attention.
Naatu Naatu Song Oscar
The composer, however, also mentioned his singers, who sang a reprise of their soundtrack at the Oscars: “I chose Kaala Bhairava and Rahul Sipligunj to do honor to this music, and they gave it their all. The song is what it is now because of this.
Keeravani further said, “The ‘Naatu Naatu’ song has to make you forget everything — and not just the viewer who is watching the movie, but the characters from the story, too, need to forget every other thing happening around them and pay their full attention towards the song. And the coda, the end part of the song, consists of so much stamina, you cannot call it merely a song — it is an action sequence.”
