Lebo M, composer of The Lion King signature opening chant that is used as an intro to the Elton John and Tim Rice-penned hit “Circle of Life” — is suing an Internet comedian for a whopping $27 million for allegedly misrepresenting the song’s meaning.
According to court documents reviewed by Complex, the South African composer, real name Lebohang Morake, filed a lawsuit against Zimbabwean stand-up comedian Learnmore Jonasi in California, alleging that the entertainer made “false statements” about the meaning of the chant, titled “Nants’ingonyama.”
Morake says that while the Zulu word “ingonyama,” which is used in the opening phrase of the chant, can literally be translated as “lion,” that is not at all the intended meaning, which is clear from the context.
As used in the chant, he says, it “signifies Kingship, Ancestral Authority, and Sovereign Presence. The lion is the metaphorical vehicle; the meaning is royalty.”
The “true meaning” of the chant’s opening phrase, “Nants’ ingonyama bagithi Baba,” he continues, is actually: “All hail the king, we all bow in the presence of the king.”
“In The Lion King, they all bowed down to Mufasa, to include his antagonistic brother, Scar,” he explains.
The suit says that on an episode of podcast One54 Africa, Jonasi sang the lyric and translated it to, “Look, there’s a lion. Oh my god.”
Lebo M’s suit says that Jonasi’s take “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.”
While Jonasi seemed to intend for the translation to be a joke (an interpretation he has since said explicitly on social media), it wasn’t funny to Lebo M, who claimed that the comedian "presented this as authoritative fact, not comedy," and "mocked the chant’s cultural significance with exaggerated imitations."
One54 Africa co-host and comedian Godfrey has since defended Jonasi by pointing out similarities between his translation and one previously given by, among others, Seth Rogen during a press junket for the 2019 Lion King remake
In a clip shared by Godfrey, a reporter interviewing Rogen and co-star Billy Eichner sang the “Look, there’s a lion. Oh my god” translation, which the actors jokingly repeated.
“They did it before us,” Godfrey said in an Instagram reel posted on Sunday (March 22). “So they’re saying the same thing. …So it’s white people saying that it’s just a lion, and it’s years before we did it.”
Jonasi has also responded to the lawsuit, claiming in an Instagram video that Lebo privately messaged him and said that he was “disrespecting” the song.
“But the moment he called me a self-hating negro, that’s when everything changed for me,” Jonasi said. “This person is literally not just attacking the joke, but my character.”
The former America’s Got Talent contestant also claimed that Lebo M called him an “idiot” and a “wannabe comedian.”
