One music director with three trade names who's now the rage in America

Chennai, March 12

M.M. Keeravani or Koduri Marakathamani Keeravani is now a household name in India and after the Golden Globe and LAFCA awards, he has become a rage among music lovers across the globe. He goes by the name Marakathamani in the Tamil film industry.

The song 'Naatu Naatu' and the movie 'RRR' are synonymous with each other and Keeravani is the one who has given life to this song which is on everyone's lips across the country, after it became a hit and also started winning global awards.

The song is now shortlisted for the Academy Awards in the Best Song category.

Keeravani was awarded the Padma Shri recently after which he won the Golden Globe award, LACFA award, national award for best music director and also won 11 Nandi awards for best music director in the Telugu film industry.

Born on July 4, 1961, Keeravani is the son of Koduri Shiva Shakti Datta, a renowned lyricist, and nephew of screen writer and director, V. Vijayendraprasad. His elder son Kaala Bhairava is a singer and has sung for several works of Keeravani, including 'Naatu Naatu'. His younger son has also made his debut in the music industry with the movie, Mathu Vadalara.

Keeravani's big break came in the blockbuster movie, �Kshana Kshanam' of Ram Gopal Varma that established him as a music director. All the songs became major hits and led to Keeravani being catapulted to the big league.

Incidentally, Keeravani's wife M.M. Srivalli is the elder sister of Rajamouli's wife, Rama Rajamouli.

The ace music director started his career as an assistant to Telugu composer and musician K. Chakravarthy and Malayalam composer, C. Rajamani in 1987.

He also assisted veteran lyricist Veturi for almost one year and had gone on record stating that Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and John Williams are musicians who have had an influence on him.

In 1997 he won the national best music director award for the movie, 'Annamaya'. He had also won a Tamil Nadu state award for the best music director in 1991 for the movie, 'Azhagan'.

His major works are in the movies 'Kshanam Kshanam' (1991), 'Seetharamayya Gari Manavaralu' (1991), 'Gharana Mogadu' (1992), 'Soorya Manasam' (1992), 'Varasadu' (1993), 'Allari Priyyudu' (1993), 'Criminal' (1994), 'Shiva Sankalpam' (1995), 'Devaragam (1996), 'Baahubali', both parts (2015 and 2017) and 'RRR' (2023).

Keeravani, who is known as M.M. Kreem in Bollywood, has a new movie coming up and it is the Ajay Devgn, Tabu-starrer �Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha'. He has composed music for other Hindi movies such as '12 O'Clock' of Mithun Chakraborty, 'Missing', 'Baby', 'Special', 'Makkhi' and 'Lahore', to name a few.

Industry sources told IANS that M.M. Keeravani/M.M. Kreem is now one of the most sought after music directors in the Hindi film industry.