Lebohang Morake, the South African composer of the iconic chant in the opening sequence of Disney’s animated Lion King film, has filed a $27 million lawsuit against comedian Learnmore Jonasi for allegedly misrepresenting the song’s lyrics.
The $27 million lawsuit, filed on March 16, 2016, in California, against Zimbabwean comedian Learnmore Jonasi (nee Learnmore Mwanyenyeka), follows Jonasi’s viral clip from the One54 Africa podcast. In the clip, Jonasi interpreted the Zulu Chant, “Nants’ingonyama bagithi Baba,” as merely translating to “Look, there’s a lion. Oh my god.”
The chant is used in both the original 1994 animation and the 2019 live adaptation of the Lion King in the beginning of the opening soundtrack titled “The Circle of Life.”
Lebo M alleges that Jonasi made “false statements of fact about the meaning of the ‘Nants’ingonyama’ composition,” claiming that the comedian “presented this as authoritative fact, not comedy,” and “mocked the chant’s cultural significance with exaggerated imitation.”
The complaint reads, “Jonasi’s reduction to ‘Look, there’s a lion. Oh my god’ is not a simplified translation.it is a fabricated, trivializing distortion, meant as a sick joke for unlawful self-profit and destruction of the imaginative and artistic work of Lebo M.” The true meaning of “Nants’ingonyama bagithi Baba” is “All hail the king, we all bow in the presence of the king.”
Jonasi responded to the lawsuit via an Instagram video, stating that Lebo M had reached out to him privately and admonished him for disrespecting the lyrics of the song. According to Jonasi, Lebo M attacked his character rather than the joke.
“But the moment he called me a self-hating negro, that’s when everything changed for me.This person is literally–not just attacking the joke–but my character,” Jonasi said.
Lebo M is suing Jonasi for misleading representation in violation of the Latham Act, defamation per se, trade libel, and tortious interference with prospective economic advantage.