Chennai, March 3 (IANS): Double Oscar-winning composer A.R Rahman says he agreed to compose music for upcoming Tamil period-drama "Kaaviya Thalaivan" because it gave him the scope to innovate with folk music like never before.

"I haven't got the opportunity to compose folk music for films very often. This project gave me the freedom to innovate with that genre of music. I had to forego a Hollywood project to take out time for this film to compose twenty songs," Rahman told IANS.

"Since it's a period film of 1930s, I had to use a lot of folk tunes laced with ragas to do justice to the era in which the film is shot. I have already composed eight full length songs along with several smaller ones," he added.

"Kaaviya Thalaivan", directed by national award-winning director Vasanthabalan is the story of a group of musical theatre actors of 1930s.

The director says Rahman's music gave him confidence.

"Even before writing the film, I had thought that only Rahman's music will do justice to my film. But I was nervous to even approach him. But when I finally narrated the story and he agreed to do it, I felt very confident about my film," Vasanthabalan said.

The film features an ensemble cast of Siddharth, Prithviraj, Vedhika Kumar, Anaika, Nassar, Thambi Ramaiah, Ponvannan and Singampuli in lead roles.

Jointly produced by S. Sashikanth and Varun Manian, the film will hit the screens this summer.