Our Father Deserves More

He wrote a song that became a moneyspinner for Disney and the success of the new Lion King movie is opening old wounds for Solomon Linda’s family

- Siyabonga Dzimbili

IT’S one of the most hummable songs in the world. With a lifespan of more than seven decades, The Lion Sleeps Tonight has been covered by everyone from Miriam Makeba to Beyoncé, raking in big bucks in the process.

Yet every time Solomon Linda’s children hear the hit track they cringe a little. “It’s painful hearing it because they stole my dad’s song and made it their own,” Elizabeth Ntsele says.

Elizabeth (60) and her sisters Delphi (64) and Philda (67) grew up singing the isicathamiya song their father penned, but the sweet melody has caused much disharmony in the trio’s lives.

Their battle to have the South African recognized as the composer of the original version of the song has been well documented in the media. Earlier this year Netflix added the documentary The Lion’s Share to its streaming service.

It details how Solomon wrote a song called Mbube, which he recorded and sang with his group The Evening Birds. It found its way overseas but when the Americans couldn’t pronounce mbube, which means lion in isiZulu, they changed the lyrics.

The track was re-recorded by The Tokens as The Lion Sleeps Tonight and reached the top of the Billboard charts in the US in the early 1960s. In 1994 Disney used the song in its hit film The Lion King, earning millions through the soundtrack and musicals that followed.

The song took on a life of its own but as author Rian Malan puts it in the doccie, Solomon was “a Zulu who wrote a melody that earned untold millions for white men, but died so poor that his widow couldn’t afford a stone for his grave”.

In 2006 Disney agreed to pay a settlement to his daughters, who sued the company for using the song without properly acknowledging their father.