/> The maverick musican A R Rahman has just fulfilled a long-cherished dream.

"For a long time now I wanted to float my own label K M Music. My label won't market the music. It'll just distribute music recorded in my studio in Chennai to large music companies, like Sony," informs Rahman.

KM are the initials for a Sufi name from the South that Rahman wants to honour through his music.

He explains, "Basically the creative aspects and vision of the music we produce will be our look-out, but not the marketing. I've no idea of the non-creative and fiscal side of the music business.

Digital downloads are easy for me. But to go into the nitty-gritty of music marketing is difficult for a creative person like me. Better to restrict myself to what I know. So I'd rather keep out of the marketing."

Elaborates Rahman, "None of my film projects will be on the KM label. My label will be devoted to putting out alternate music—the kind of sound I don't have the freedom to create in movies....This idea of a music label was with me for some time now. But I didn't want to announce it until I had some of the music ready."

Now Rahman is all set to put out a bunch of albums on his label. "There's an artiste from the UK, another one will feature a mix of artistes from India and the US, another is a Tamil poetry project...It's all experimental and eclectic. Let's see how it goes...

Though I won't be directly involved in the production of all the music on my label I'll certainly be involved in all my projects. In fact the reason I built this large studio in Chennai was to finally start this label. No one can use the facilities in this studio as well as me."