Kalki 2898 AD (soundtrack)

Kalki 2898 AD is the soundtrack album composed by Santhosh Narayanan to the 2024 Indian Telugu-language epic dystopian science fiction action film of the same name, directed by Nag Ashwin, starring Amitabh Bachchan, Kamal Haasan, Prabhas and Deepika Padukone. The lyrics are written by Ramajogayya Sastry, Chandrabose and Krishna Kanth in Telugu, Kumaar and Siddharth-Garima in Hindi, Vivek in Tamil, Varadaraj Chikkaballapura in Kannada and Shyam Muraleedharan in Malayalam. The soundtrack album which consisted of six songs was released on 10 July 2024.

Production
In August 2020, A. R. Rahman was initially approached to compose music for the film. However, Rahman did not sign the film, and was replaced by Mickey J. Meyer. In February 2023, Dutt stated in an interview that Santhosh Narayanan replaced Meyer as the composer of the film. Narayanan recorded the background score by February 2024. The recording of songs took place at the Future Tense Studios in Chennai.

In March 2024, a romantic dance track ("Ta Takkara") featuring Prabhas and Disha Patani was filmed in Italy's Royal Palace of Caserta. The choreography of the songs was done by Pony Verma.

In an interview with The Hindu, Narayanan revealed that Nag Ashwin hired him as the music director because he loved the album Cuckoo which was composed by Narayanan back in 2014. Narayanan also stated that he wanted to add tunes of eighties and nineties in the album and said that the album is an ode and tribute to various artists including A. R. Rahman, Ilaiyaraaja, M. S. Viswanathan, S. S. Rajamouli and M. M. Keeravani. Further he stated that the film is set in the future where the remaining people are a mix of languages, cultures and communities. "I wanted to bring that to the album and the score". "Kalki’s album is my ode to the multicultural identity of India.”

Release
The audio rights of the film were acquired by Saregama for all languages. In February 2024, a short glimpse of the theme song of the film was revealed by Narayanan at the Neeye Oli Consort in Chennai. The song "Bujji Theme" was released separately on 27 May 2024. The first single titled "Bhairava Anthem" was released on 16 June 2024. The song was sung by famous Punjabi singer Diljit Dosanjh. The song marks Diljit Dosanjh's debut in South Indian film industry and his maiden collaboration with Prabhas. The second single titled "Theme of Kalki" was released on 25 June 2024. The second single titled "Theme of Kalki" featured the Dashavatara of Lord Vishnu. The third single "Ta Takkara (Complex Song)" was released on 29 June 2024. The fourth single titled "Hope of Shambala" was released on 4 July 2024. The song "Keshava Madhava" featured the voice of Amitabh Bachchan (Hindi version) and lyrics written by the duo of Siddharth–Garima in Hindi while Krishna Kanth wrote the Telugu lyrics for the song.

Background score
The film further featured thirty songs in the background score, that was released as a separate album on 11 July 2024 by Saregama.


 * Notes
 * undefined Tracks 3 and 22 from the original soundtrack, were released within the soundtrack album.

Album credits
Credits adapted from Saregama.


 * Score composed, orchestrated and programmed by Santhosh Narayanan
 * Electronic Music Production : 6091
 * Additional Programming : OfRo, Aditya Ravindran, Pranav Muniraj, Karthik Manickavasakam, Rupender Venkatesh, 808krshna, Shivakumar Adabala
 * Puttinavaniki Voice : Ghantasala Balaramayya
 * Flutes and Whistles : Santhosh Narayanan
 * Irish Whistle and Woodwinds : Ashish Venkateswaran
 * Guitars : Aditya Ravindran
 * Kokkarai, Udukka, Thambattam : Iniyan Manimaaran
 * Percussions : Karthik Vamsi, Siddharth Nagarajan
 * Indian Percussions : Buddhar kalaikuzhu
 * Saxophone : Aniket Chaturvedi
 * Violin : Manoj Kumar
 * Kika Drummers: Kawanguzi Simon, Baryabireeba Alvin, Kabodha Peter, Tenywa Sosan, Mulindwa Emmanuel, Kikaire Livingston, Bwana Yusuf
 * Uganda Kika Percussions group Coordinator : Kaddu Yusuf
 * Additional Vocals : Dhee, Mahalakshmi Rajagopalan, Ananthu, Meenakshi Elayaraja, Rohit Fernandes, Victor, Santosh Hariharan, Sreekanth Hariharan, Sudharsan HemaRam, Manikandan Chembai, Mayank Kapri, Viva Rao, Sarthak Kalyani, Aditya Ravindran, Karthik Manickavasakam
 * Choir: The Indian Choral Ensemble, conducted by Karthik Manickavasakam
 * Sopranos: Aparna Harikumar, Alisha Mathew Thayil, Sushmita Narasimhan, Nidhi Saraogi, Vani Nandhini, Rutuja Pande, Shwetha Sugathan, Yazhini, Samanvitha Sasidaran, Amritha Rajesh Chelat
 * Altos: Nayansee Sharma, Geethu Nirmala, Fathima Henna, Megha Salila, Shruthi Parthasarathy, Shri Bhadra, Varsha R Mallya, Ananya A, Pavithra Chari, Kaaviya S
 * Tenors: Akash V H, Sudarshan HemaRam, Keshav Vinod, Shivsundar R, Shridhar Ramesh, Manoj Krishna, Shibi Srinivas, Dhiyanathiru, Nikhilchandran D S, Arshith Kurian, Chirag Shetty, Manikandan Chembai, Joseph George, Ebenezer
 * Basses: Regis Tony, Shyam Krishna, Prashanth Mohanasundaram, Cyril Solomon, Neeraj Selvaganapathy, Soloman Ravindar
 * Strings, Brass, Woodwinds orchestrated by Karthik Manickavasakam
 * Orchestra: FAME'S Skopje Studio Orchestra
 * Conductor : Oleg Kondratenko
 * Sound recordist : Arber Curri
 * Pro tools operator: Marina Lefkova
 * Stage Managers : Riste Trajkovski - Ilija Grkovski - Filip Popov
 * Orchestra co-ordinating: Joshua Rodrigues / Bohemia Junction Ltd
 * Recorded By Santhosh Narayanan, Karthik Manickavasakam, Pranav Muniraj
 * Recorded at Future Tense Studios, Chennai
 * Recording Engineers : Rupendar Venkatesh, Joshua D. Fernandez
 * Studio Assist : Jabaraj
 * Mixed and Mastered by Santhosh Narayanan at Future Tense Studios
 * Musicians Coordinator : Meenakshi Santhosh