SOLOMON LINDA - Composer of MBUBE - Photo from MUFF ANDERSSON'S "Music in The Mix", Courtesy of the GALLO AFRICA ARCHIVE. 

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About the Music Legend. (Virtual equipements & mix by Jozua K.)

The fate of a great song-writer who 'sold' his soul & song to Gallo Africa for a few Guinness - when technically & morally he should have earned approx. $10 Million dollars (US)!!! Some say $15 Million for a song that could have been to South Africa what ' Tennessee Waltz' is to US. Goodness forbid!!

But you know what we mean... the fact is that's how the American's & Europeans would listen to it if they knew where it belonged. Many American & British composers have claimed the copyright to MBUBE over the past 50 odd hidden years. It's about time that we get to know a little of our own history & dig our own roots.  This all relates to the South Africa music in crisis article by Angus Kerr and his contention that East Coast Radio and the other Top Forty American Formatted Radio Stations in Africa need to show a little more interest in where, and how, they live!

 
In The Jungle --- it is one of the great musical mysteries of all time: How American music legends made millions off the work of a Zulu tribesman who died a pauper. After six decades, the truth is finally told.

Once upon a time, a long time ago, a small miracle took place in the brain of a man named Solomon Linda. It was 1939, and he was standing in front of a microphone in the only recording studio in black Africa when it happened. He hadn't composed the melody or written it down or anything.

He just opened his mouth and out it came, a haunting skein of fifteen notes that flowed down the wires and into a trembling stylus that cut tiny grooves into a spinning block of bees wax, which was taken to England and turned into a record that became a very big hit in that part of Africa.
Later, the song took flight and landed in America, where it mutated into a truly immortal pop epiphany that soared to the top of the charts here and then everywhere, again and again, returning every decade or so under different names and guises. Navajo Indians sing it at powwows. Japanese teenagers know it as TK.  Phish perform it live. Cybersurfers recognize it as the theme song of a hugely popular British website. It has been recorded by artists as diverse as R.E.M. and Glen Campbell, Brian Eno and Chet Atkins, the Nylons and schlockmeister Bert Kaempfert. The New Zealand army band turned it into a march. England's 1986 World Cup soccer squad turned it into a joke. Hollywood put it in Ace Ventura Pet Detective. It has logged nearly three centuries of continuous radio air play in the U.S. alone. It is 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.

Its epic transcultural saga is also, in a way, the story of popular music, which limped pale-skinned and anaemic into the twentieth century but danced out the other side vastly invigorated by transfusions of ragtime and rap, jazz, blues and soul, all of whose blood lines run back to Africa via slave ships and plantations and ghettos. It was in the nature of this transaction that black men gave more than they got and often ended up with nothing.

This one's for Solomon Linda, then, a Zulu who wrote a melody that earned untold millions for white men but died so poor that his widow couldn't afford a stone for his grave. Let's take it from the top, as they say in the trade.

 read more:  The Legend

Comments:

Reviewed on 08 Apr 2010 by a 2-star scout
Score: 9/10
Excellent song, brought back loads of memories and just gets better. The vocals are perfectly well harmonised and the different tones and harmonies just make it better. I think this is a timeless classic that will always be around.

Reviewed on 08 Apr 2010 by a 4-star scout
Score: 3/10
Some nice backing vocals at the start of this track and quite an African feel with the gospel choir like vocals in the intro. Nice enough to listen to but a little slow paced.

Reviewed on 08 Apr 2010 by a 1-star scout
Score: 5/10
The song was different and abit strange at the beggining. The singer was great vocally.  The lyrics could have been improved.

Reviewed on 08 Apr 2010 by a 2-star scout
Score: 8/10
Riotous uplifting gospel accapella with a glorious arrangement. Great vocal with elements of the Lion Sleeps Tonight used to good effect.

Release it in time for the World Cup.inspired.

Reviewed on 08 Apr 2010 by a 3-star scout
Score: 7/10
This is a african tribal sounding song. It reminds me of some of the music in the lion king. This is interesting and entertaining. this is fun and easy to listen to.

Reviewed on 08 Apr 2010 by a 3-star scout
Score: 3/10
Cant say I really like the pattern of this track at all. Sounded quite scrawny and powerless in ways.

Reviewed on 08 Apr 2010 by a 1-star scout
Score: 7/10
The beginning of the song is very good and you get into the song straight away which is good.  I don’t know about the market you are aiming for though.  Maybe you should change some of the lyrics and make it more youthful.

Reviewed on 08 Apr 2010 by a 3-star scout
Score: 5/10
This song is a classic in my opinion.  I’ve heard this song several times in my entire life.  I think this song has been institutionalized by film makers around the world. the musicality is good in every way.

Reviewed on 08 Apr 2010 by a 2-star scout
Score: 7/10
The vocals are pretty decent, they blend together and harmonise well and are all strong sounds that really come across and make themselves known. It is quite an interesting track, but it is a bit mixed and there appears to be quite a lot happening in it.

Reviewed on 08 Apr 2010 by a 4-star scout
Score: 6/10
I like this song it has a very catchy melody and positive vibe, really fun and lively. It would be nice however if you could improve the sound quality a bit.

Reviewed on 08 Apr 2010 by a 4-star scout
Score: 3/10
The track sounded original and it was an interesting mix overall but as a whole, I did not get what the track was about really. the sounds needs to be more polished and refined that is. the lyrics were not memorable either.

Reviewed on 08 Apr 2010 by a 5-star scout
Score: 3/10
I don’t think this song will be profitable because it sounded too old. the performance and the melody is actually great but it’s a appeal is not very entertaining anymore. the voices were great and I think they are making some atmospheric melodies though.

Reviewed on 08 Apr 2010 by a 3-star scout
Score: 3/10
This song is not clear and too crowd. The accapella were not melodious and harmonious because the singer don't possesed good voice.

Reviewed on 08 Apr 2010 by a 3-star scout
Score: 3/10
This song is not good, the aceplla is bad since it's too crowd. As the consequences, the voice is compete each other.

Reviewed on 08 Apr 2010 by a 2-star scout
Score: 9/10
Great vocals and use of the vocal mix. I love the arrangement here which on the theme of 'Lion Sleeps Tonight' works brilliantly. Quite an outstanding effort which I took to straight away. Potential is all there for better things. Catchy with moods in abundance;

I really like the track.

Reviewed on 08 Apr 2010 by a 5-star scout
Score: 3/10
This is just a recording of another artists record and is not a great recording at that as the sound quality is messy, distort and very echo-y and I haven't enjoyed one bit of this tune.

Reviewed on 08 Apr 2010 by a 5-star scout
Score: 4/10
The song sounded really old fashioned and dated, did not sound original eiither the recording was of poor quality, sounded like someone was playing an old record.

Reviewed on 08 Apr 2010 by a 3-star scout
Score: 7/10
Beautifull high quality vocals, they are having a real talent for a music, this is showing a great sense for a music, good job really pleasant and holy for listening.

Reviewed on 08 Apr 2010 by a 3-star scout
Score: 8/10
The song was nice the sounds that are made in the song are great the music of the song is really the thing it is fantastic the rythm i'd never really lost.

Reviewed on 08 Apr 2010 by a 3-star scout
Score: 3/10
The track for me was really messy and its genre wasnt well defined i kinda dont get what the song was all about the vocals blending sounded noisy and the backing sounds wasn at all impressive too.

Reviewed on 08 Apr 2010 by a 3-star scout
Score: 3/10
The intro to this track really does sound far too loud and overpowering. I also dont like how common and familiar the general tune of the music is, very boring to listen to something with no important lyrics or performance either.

Reviewed on 08 Apr 2010 by a 1-star scout
Score: 8/10
For a cover vocal capello it is definitely not bad. I love it when I hear a good track without instruments. However, it could be a little more unique. The vocals are definitely good, but it needs more diversity.

Reviewed on 08 Apr 2010 by a 3-star scout
Score: 2/10
Very funny to hear, don’t know what is the artist trying up in the track, don’t have lyrics and music is rubbish as well.

Reviewed on 08 Apr 2010 by a 5-star scout
Score: 1/10
The Lion Sleeps Tonight…. I was the lion for this play back in 1st grade.  I’m not really into the intro. Would this go as a cover????

Reviewed on 08 Apr 2010 by a 3-star scout
Score: 4/10
The song's introudction was unusual but could of done with sounding a little bit clearer. make sure the vocals are clearer and the words are more legible.

Reviewed on 08 Apr 2010 by a 3-star scout
Score: 3/10
Well this is just unoriginal. I mean this sounds exactly like another song. The performance is just overcrowded and the audio quality is patejtic.

Reviewed on 08 Apr 2010 by a 2-star scout
Score: 7/10
A lively music with an orchestra approach, I find it a unique blend of music with good harmony of voice and instruments. The recording was fine.

Reviewed on 08 Apr 2010 by a 4-star scout
Score: 1/10
I think this song is too old fashioned, the tune and blending of the voices were great but it lacks the beat.  a good drumming would be better in this track too.  I like the variation of voices in this track actually.

Reviewed on 08 Apr 2010 by a 2-star scout
Score: 2/10
This is boring and I switched off within seconds. Stupid samples and no musical ability anywhere near this song at all. It’s just a complete noise and actually very irritating.

Reviewed on 08 Apr 2010 by a 2-star scout
Score: 6/10
I hear one long sample. I cannot discern original music in this jumble of sound. the first ten seconds were enjoyable, but the experience then steadily went south.

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