Most people who's watched the Lion King probably only remember the characters such as Simba and Mufasa, as well as the infamous song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." What people don't know is how the song came about and where it came from. The song was originally written in 1939, by a man by the name of Solomon Popoli Linda. In 1939, inside of Africa's only music studio at the time, Solomon began rehearsing songs and later recorded the song "Mbube', which translates into the word "Lion". Now fast forward all the way to the 2000 years. A South African journalist named Rian Malan, wrote a feature article for the magazine Rolling Stone, describing Linda's story and estimating that the song had earned US $15 million for its use in the movie "The Lion King" alone. After Disney at first gave his family or heirs no money from the record or even recognized him as the song's composer, Solomon's family finally came intuition and sued Disney for the rights of the song. Since then, the two parties has come to a mutual agreement and settled the suit for an undisclosed amount of money.
I've personally have never seen the Lion King neither via dvd, movie, nor television series. Simba and Mufasa are names that I don't recall. I do agree the song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" is infamous indeed. It was played on the airwaves over and over again to the point it's on instand replay in my head just by thinking of the song's title. I disagree that it was orignally written in 1939. It was written in the 1920's by Solomon Linda, who was a South African. Mr. Linda orinally worked for Gallo Record Company as a cleaner. Linda entitled the song as "Mbube" which in Zulu meant "lion". He is deceasd, but just prior to the Disney using the song, his decendands were considered very poor. They did sue Disney and walked away with a settlemnt. Mickey is such a fair chap.
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