“If you grew up in Soweto, American culture was the thing. He persuaded one of them to buy him a ticket to New York, where he knew his dreams would come true. He started to make money and, more importantly, he made contacts, especially with the international tourists who couldn’t get enough of his music. ![]() ![]() In five-star hotels and fancy restaurants, he and his close friend, the late Vernon Molefe, would play the piano for tips. It was in Lesotho, amid the tight-knit community of South African activists in exile, that Lebo M started to really understand what the apartheid regime was all about.īut politics wasn’t his thing: he had a different dream. I found out two months later I was in this thing called exile. “I didn’t even know that I had crossed the country, I didn’t know there was something called ID, I didn’t know there was a passport. In 1979, when he heard that a new club was opening in Maseru, he got on a bus and never looked back. He kept coming back, performing alongside some of the era’s biggest names - the likes of Mara Louw, Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Spirits Rejoice - which gave him a priceless musical grounding.īut he wanted more. “I was just in my little Disneyland in front of a microphone with people jumping up and down, the little cute boy with the cute voice,” he says. No going back.” Be preparedĪt the age of 13, Lebo M was asked to fill in for an absent backup singer at Club Pelican, which at the time was the centre of Soweto’s thriving jazz scene. “Once you get the attention of the girls that age, nine, 10, and 11, you forget being a dentist basically. Instead, he joined a youth club, where he played table tennis and learned ballroom dancing, and then signed up for a street band that performed at weddings. Maybe I lasted 20 minutes at boxing,” he said. Fortunately for me, I was horrible at soccer. You obviously had school - if not interrupted by some political circumstance - and soccer and boxing. “Coming from Soweto at that time, there were very few options for young black kids. ![]() The story of how Lebo M went from apartheid-era Soweto schoolboy to global superstar is arguably more interesting than The Lion King’s Hamlet-inspired narrative. It simply means all hail the king, bow down in the presence of the king … ‘Nants ingonyama’ spelled out means ‘Here comes a lion.’ But metaphorically and in context it is acknowledging the arrival of King Mufasa, and the whole intro is built around that.” If you translate directly, it would sound stupid. “You know, for more than 10 years, no one actually asked me what that meant,” Lebo chuckles, clearly amused at the idea of all these millions of people all over the world singing along to a lyric they did not understand.įor the record: “In South African languages, and particularly African South African languages, we speak in metaphor. Sung in Zulu, that opening line became an instant classic - not that anyone outside South Africa really appreciated the meaning behind the words. It set the tone and the spirit and the emotion of the soundtrack,” he says. Everything else we ever did, when we tried to be musical about it, it just refused. “So what most people don’t know is, that first note you hear in The Lion King that I’m singing, is actually the first and only take that was ever done. But no matter how hard he tried, he never improved on that very first take. But when inspiration struck, Lebo M was home in South Africa, far from the Los Angeles studio where the movie was being recorded, so he hastily put together a demo tape that he intended to perfect later. Lebo M had been asked to work on the movie by Hans Zimmer, the celebrated German soundtrack composer, who wanted to make sure the score had some authentic African flair. He’s a big deal now, of course, but in 1994 he was - as per his own description - a 30-year-old hustler who knew he was going to be famous one day, but hadn’t quite made it yet. The man who wrote and sings that opening line is South African musician Lebo M. For many people who don’t live in Africa, it is their only reference point for what the continent looks like, or what it means to be African. Released a quarter of a century ago, the film is now iconic: not only is it among the most profitable films of all time, but it has also become a touchstone in popular culture. ![]() So begins The Lion King, Disney’s animated children’s movie about the lion cub who just can’t wait to be king.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |