Mumbai, Jan 6 (IANS): Oscar-winning music director, singer, and songwriter AR Rahman is celebrating his 56th birthday on Friday and he took to Twitter to make an announcement about the launch of his digital platform 'Katraar'.

Born on January 6, 1967, the ace musician is opening up new avenues for emerging artists and his digital music platform is where musical artists can directly upload their creations and earn from them.

Rahman will also be releasing some of his exclusive creations through the Katraar platform.

He shared a video and wrote: "I'm excited to announce today-KATRAAR, the #metaverse platform currently in development, is one step closer to launching. And I look forward to sharing this journey with you all."

Rahman is known for giving music in a number of films and also for international collaborations. He was noticed by director Mani Ratnam and Rahman started scoring for his Tamil film 'Roja'. Later, he worked for 'Bombay' as well. He won two Oscar awards. He is also a winner of six national film awards and was conferred the Padma Bhushan.

He added in the video that the platform is for new technologies and bringing direct revenue to the artists. It is all about bringing new talent and giving them a platform to focus on innovation and bridging the gap between old and new.

Many international creations will be on this platform soon. The platform is being developed in partnership with the HBAR foundation and will be deployed on the Hedera Network.