There are some songs that you can guess within the first few seconds, and that’s certainly true with The Lion Sleeps Tonight.

It’s been covered many times over, perhaps most famously by The Tokens in the 1960s, and the song once again rose to fame when it was featured in The Lion King.

Despite the fact that South African journalist Rian Malan first covered the story behind the story back in 2000 in a famous Rolling Stones article, the saga of a Zulu musician named Solomon Linda, and more recently his surviving family, continues.

In 2002, Malan teamed up with SA filmmaker Francois Verster for A Lion’s Trail, which tracked Linda’s story, and now a new doccie has once again highlighted the plight of the family.

TimesLIVE reports:

It was estimated that US and SA record companies and Disney had made about $16m off a song that had come from Linda’s recording, while the composer died penniless in 1962 – his family so poor they couldn’t afford money for a proper tombstone…

The crux of the new story is this: following Malan’s article and the subsequent documentary, SA lawyers got involved and decided to sue Disney for their use of the song without proper acknowledgement or payment for its use in the Lion King film and musical.

In 2006 Disney agreed to a settlement to Linda’s three surviving daughters for an undisclosed amount and on the condition that everyone involved in the whole, terrible saga – including Malan – sign non-disclosure agreements.

If you are already familiar with this one, you know what happens next, although it’s still worth watching for the latest on a story with plenty of twists and turns.

Let’s go to the trailer for The Lion’s Share:

It’s riveting, and now you’ve got the song stuck in your head for the rest of the day, too.

When you’re done watching The Lion’s Share, you can also binge these two series.

[source:timeslive]