Singer Abhijeet blames AR Rahman for replacing live musicians with tech.
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00:00On 9th April, singer Abhijit Bhattacharya slammed AR Rahman for the overuse of technology on an A&I podcast.
00:30On the same podcast, he claimed that Rahman's tech-driven music has left many instrumentalists jobless.
00:42However, Rahman in his response to India Today on 14th April, took the criticism in stride.
00:48It's nice to blame me for everything, he said with a smile, adding that he still loved Abhijit and would send him cakes.
00:54It's nice to blame me for everything. It's his opinion, nothing wrong.
00:59Look, I just set up an orchestra with 60 women in Dubai.
01:05They're all employed every month, they get paid insurance and health and everything.
01:11And every movie, whether it's Chava or P.S., there are 200 to 300 musicians.
01:19And some songs have more than 100 musicians that I don't like to show and put photographs of all that.
01:25Rahman defended his use of tech saying computers are just tools.
01:29And all final recordings still involve live musicians.
01:32And the computers are used as a tool to design extraordinary harmonies and everything because
01:39you can't afford to get musicians to play and reject it later.
01:44So all the rejection should happen in the soft sense.
01:47However, the concern raised by Abhijit isn't isolated.
01:59A 2023 Federation of Western India Cine Employees report said over 50% of Bollywood session musicians saw
02:06a 40 to 60% income drop post-2020, blaming the rise of digital tools.
02:12Globally, a 2022 Berklee study found 70% of producers now use AI-assisted composition,
02:19often replacing live instrumentalists in background scores and demos.
02:23Performing Rights Society, aka PRS for Music UK in 2023, reported
02:27one in three instrumentalists fear job loss due to tech.
02:30So, is this a crisis or just the industry's evolution?