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March 23, 2006
I Hope Mbube Sleeps Tonight
Decades later, but justice triumphs. How sweet is that?
Three impoverished South African women whose father wrote the song known as "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" have won a six-year battle for royalties in a case that could affect other musicians.The story surrounding the song that never seems to go out of date amounts to a rags-to-riches tale, replete with racial overtones.
...Linda composed his now-famous song in 1939 in one of the squalid hostels that housed black migrant workers in Johannesburg. According to family lore, he wrote the song in minutes, inspired by his childhood tasks of chasing prowling lions from the cattle he herded. He called the song Mbube, Zulu for lion.
It was sung, in true Zulu tradition, a cappella. Linda's innovation was to add his falsetto voice, an overlay of haunting "eeeeeees," to the baritone and bass main line. To this day, this style is called Mbube in South Africa.
The song sold more than 100,000 copies over a decade, probably making it Africa's first big pop hit.
In the 1950s, at a time when apartheid laws robbed blacks of negotiating rights, Linda sold worldwide copyright to Gallo Records of South Africa for 10 shillings - less than $1.70.
Posted by tree hugging sister at March 23, 2006 10:13 AM