Solomon Linda

Solomon Linda (1909-1962), South African musician. Solomon Popoli Linda was born near the town of Pomeroy, a member of the Zulu ethnic group. At the time of his birth, South Africa was ruled by a tiny white population that kept the black majority in an impoverished, oppressed state, stripped of their land, unable to vote, and barred from nearly all professions. He began singing at weddings and feasts at a young age, combining Zulu traditions with ideas that he learned from touring African American singers. In 1931 he moved to Johannesburg, where he worked in his uncle’s furniture store while singing in a group called the Evening Birds. The group won numerous competitions and rapidly grew in popularity due to its sense of style, which included pinstriped suits and bowler hats, but even more so because of its music. Linda almost singlehandedly created the isicathamiya musical style, including multiple bass singers and fasi pathi, a high falsetto lead part that he sang himself. In 1939, the Evening Birds were spotted by a talent scout and recorded several songs at Gallo Records, the only recording studio in sub-Saharan Africa. One of these was a song that Linda improvised on the spot and entitled “Mbube” (“lion”), inspired by a childhood memory of chasing lions away from the family cattle. “Mbube” eventually sold more than 100,000 copies; the original master recording was re-pressed so many times that it finally disintegrated. The Evening Birds also recorded other songs, including “Yetulisgqoko” (“Take off Your Hat”), which criticized police brutality and ended with the words sikhalela izwe lakithi (“we mourn for our country”).

After the group broke up in 1948, Linda continued to perform throughout South Africa while also raising a family. By then the racial oppression in his country had grown even worse and become known as apartheid ("separateness"). In 1952, the American folk singer Pete Seeger recorded his own version of “Mbube,” which he entitled “Wimoweh” (a misspelling of the chant “uyimbube”). It became even more popular in 1961 when it was re-written as “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” and recorded by the Tokens. The song went to number one on the American charts and has been recorded by more than 160 other musicians; one journalist describes it as “the most famous melody ever to emerge from Africa…a tune that has penetrated so deep into the human consciousness over so many generations that one can truly say, here is a song the whole world knows.” Linda did not benefit from this, though, as he had sold his rights to the song to Gallo Records for less than $2; South African law did not allow blacks to own royalties. Seeger sent Linda a check for $1,000 and instructed his publishing company to send additional payments to Linda’s family, but this never happened. Even Linda did not realize that he had been swindled; “he was happy,” his daughter later recalled, “he didn’t know he was supposed to get something.” He collapsed on stage in 1959 and was diagnosed with kidney failure, which finally took his life three years later. When he died, he was so poor that his grave had no tombstone and his family could not pay for proper Zulu burial rites.

Under South African law, the rights to “Mbube” should have reverted to them in 1987, but they received no compensation, even after the song was introduced to a new generation in Disney’s 1994 film The Lion King. In 2000, though, a South African journalist wrote an article telling Linda’s story and estimating that the song had earned $15 million over the years. Linda’s family brought a lawsuit and in 2006 agreed to a settlement that included back royalties and additional payments for any future use; the publishing company also agreed to pay for a memorial to Linda. By then, he had also earned recognition as one of the pioneers of South African music, inspiring later artists such as Miriam Makeba and Ladysmith Black Mambazo.

©David Brodnax, Sr.