In the courtroom, the mighty courtroom, trues justice sleeps tonight. I don’t feel any better for learning about how unjustly the creators of any art form, idea, written piece or any other entertainment creation are treated in Africa because my sense is that here, we treat them about as badly.

The only cure I’ve found, which only works just over half the time is a strong, brisk dose of Barry Manilow or certain songs from the original Celtic Women.īut your point about the tangled mess of compensating the creator or his family with some of the money raised by artists or music publishers, there is little (which is repeatable within polite company) to be said. I only just now read this post and am already on my 3rd pass though the popular version we grew up on here. As you seem to already know well, it is very catchy and loops for at lease several days, taking hostage any spare, unless mental focus. In the role I was born into and lived through, I heard this song often. Of course, many of us are so given to the mental seize disorder of looping the ( last song we hear x it’s bio-sticky factor) for some number of hours, days or weeks. Lions live in the savannah, not the rainforest. The references to the lion sleeping were a coded message that colonial rule would not defeat the Zulu people, who would one day wake up…īut then looking at the words about a lion sleeping “ in the jungle, the mighty jungle” were NOT from the original African version of the song. Some have claimed that the “lion” represented the great king of the Zulus, Shaka Zulu. Some argue that Solomon Linda did not write the song but improvised a traditional Zulu song sung when a king has passed away.

“The Lion Sleeps Tonight”, however, is still in copyright. In 2012, “ Mbube” fell into the public domain due to the copyright law of South Africa. So yeah again in the jungle, the unjust jungle, Linda’s estate still not benefiting from the digital remake of The Lion King. In February 2006, Linda’s descendants began receiving the compensation ( the settlement applied to royalties dating back to 1987) and the arrangement was to end in December 2017, just a year and a half before The Lion King remake was made, you could say at the time no one had any idea a remake would come along Ownership of “ Mbube,” “ Wimoweh” and “ The Lion Sleeps Tonight” was a tangled mess as Linda Solomon ( who had been illiterate) had initially signed over rights to Gallo, then his wife and daughters had twice done the same in the years following but eventually, a 1911 legal clause was used to revert copyright to Linda’s Estate after 25 years. In 2000, South African journalist Rian Malan wrote an exposé for Rolling Stones which exposed and shamed players in the music industry with the question what happened to about 15 Million in royalties and in 2002, director Francois Verster created an award-winning documentary tracing the long journey of “ Mbube” to “ The Lion Sleeps Tonight” titled A Lion’s Trail which further put a spotlight on the song and the lawsuit between Linda’s estate and Disney. He died in 1962 with not much in the bank even though locally in he was somewhat a legend. Somewhere in all that Solomon Linda was forgotten and never quite getting Royalties from the ensuing success of what was essentially his melody and concept.

Original wimoweh