Maamannan (soundtrack)

Maamannan is the soundtrack to the 2023 Tamil-language political drama film of the same name directed by Mari Selvaraj and starred Vadivelu, and Udhayanidhi Stalin. The music and original score is composed by A. R. Rahman, replacing Selvaraj's norm composer Santhosh Narayanan, for their first-time collaboration. Lyrics for the songs were written by Yugabharathi, while one song was written by Arivu. The album was released on 1 June 2023 at an audio launch event held in Chennai.

Background
Rahman, in an interview to The New Indian Express writer Chokita Paul, explained his stance on scoring Maamannan as it was "essential to venture beyond comfort zone" and attributed that the "emerging talents bring a fresh perspective to the table and possess a striking vision and an innovative approach to storytelling that invigorates him" calling it as a "liberating feeling", as the film discusses about several themes including inequality. He began recording the score for the film on late-October 2022. In May 2023, Vadivelu had recorded a song for the film called "Raasa Kannu", which released as a single on 19 May 2023. Vadivelu also performed the song at the film's audio launch event. While discussing with Selvaraj, Rahman had expected the music to be on the lines of Kizhakku Cheemayile (1993), however he asked him for a song that sounds similar to Bob Marley's "Zion Train", which resulted him to compose a reggae number "Jigu Jigu Rail". Since Selvaraj felt that the stories are not only meant for the people who are familiar with them, but also from foreigners to experience and understand them, and the effective tool when taking local stories to the world is music.

Release
"Raasa Kannu" released as the first single on 19 May 2023, followed by "Jigu Jigu Rail" on 27 May. The film's audio launch event was held on 1 June 2023 at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Chennai, with the presence of the cast and crew, along with noted celebrities such as Pa. Ranjith, A. R. Murugadoss, Mysskin, Pandiraj, H. Vinoth, Vijay Antony, Kavin, Kamal Hassan, Sivakarthikeyan, Vetrimaaran, S. J. Suryah, Pradeep Ranganathan, Soori, Vignesh Shivan and Boney Kapoor attending the event. Rahman and his musical team performed the songs from the film live.

A reprised version of the song "Nenjame Nenjame" performed by Deva, was released as a single on 12 July 2023.

Reception
Vipin Nair of Music Aloud rated four stars out of five indicating "Rahman's incredible run of form continues" with this film. Siddharth Srinivas of Only Kollywood highlighted it as "another solid offering from Rahman" giving 3.75 out of 5. Gopinath Rajendran of The Hindu called the songs as "ear-pleasers" but criticized the background score as "tad underwhelming". K. Janani of India Today claimed that "Being a rural film, Rahman, with his Western tunes, has given a new colour to the film." Bharathy Singaravel of The News Minute commented that Rahman's "flawless music" complemented the cinematography, with the tracks "Raasa Kannu" and "Jigu Jigu Rail" being demanded "repeat listening". Lakshi Subramaniam of The Week wrote "A.R. Rahman's background music is top-notch as it expresses the anger and pain within a man who is oppressed by societal norms."