Hindi Film Songs in the Home: Gendered Experiences of Singing Popular Songs in Tamale, Northern Ghana

Beginning in the 1950s, Dagbamba and Hausa women in Tamale listened to Hindi film songs in their homes, via gramophone records and through state-run women’s radio programs. Hindi film songs were soon integrated into existing domestic singing practices, including songs meant for domestic labor (tuma-yila) and childcare (biyola-yila). Through an analysis of oral history interviews as well as recorded performances of Hindi film songs sung by women, men, and youth in Tamale, I show how everyday performances of Hindi film songs reveal gendered and intergenerational experiences of domestic space, labor, and social life in Tamale