The most internationally-known, and perhaps the most complicated, South African song is “Mbube.” What a story….
We end our online class South Africa week — far too soon — with a musical theft of epic proportion. The most famous South African song in the Western Hemisphere must be “Wimoweh,” a traditional South African tune brought to America by folk legend Pete Seeger in the ’50s, popularized in 1961 by a vocal group called the Tokens, Disnified (and generating immense profit) in the 1994 film “The Lion King” …except “Wimoweh” is not a traditional tune–it’s a “Mbube (The Lion),” a song composed by South African musician Solomon Linda Linda died in poverty in 1962. Only after the Disney version generated an estimated $15 million in revenue did Linda’s heirs successfully sue for compensation. Read an account of this twisted tale here.
By the way, lions don’t typically live in the jungle–they live in the savannah, and, while lions do sleep up to 20 hours a day and therefore could technically be “sleeping tonight,” lions are (primarily) nocturnal. Jeez!
