The Print (India): 80 years of qawwali in Bombay cinema — one man is archiving Hindi music’s crown jewel

The Print (India): 80 years of qawwali in Bombay cinema — one man is archiving Hindi music’s crown jewel. “Much before Indians started grooving to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, qawwalis were a jewel in the crown in scores of Bollywood movies through five decades. It featured Muslim characters, showcased the lyricist’s poetry and quickened the pace and plot twists in the storylines. And then the qawwalis in Hindi films started to dwindle. Now, it is largely a phenomenon that has moved on to the realm of scholarly research and study. And Yousuf Saeed, has done just that with The Cinema Qawwali Project.” . I didn’t know what qawwali was, so I checked MegaGladys. The response, sourced from Wikipedia, was “Qawwali is a form of Sufi Islamic devotional singing, originating in South Asia.”