{"id":546972,"date":"2026-03-26T19:25:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T19:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/546972\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T19:25:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T19:25:08","slug":"lion-king-singer-sues-comedian-for-mistranslating-circle-of-life-chant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/546972\/","title":{"rendered":"Lion King Singer Sues Comedian for Mistranslating Circle of Life Chant"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tLebohang Morake, the Grammy-winning South African composer who performed the iconic opening chant in \u201cCircle of Life\u201d at the start of Disney\u2019s \u201cThe Lion King<\/a>,\u201d is suing the comedian Learnmore Jonasi for \u201callegedly damaging his reputation by intentionally misrepresenting the song\u2019s meaning on a podcast and in his standup routine,\u201d per a report<\/a> from The Guardian<\/a>. The musician is seeking more than $20 million in damages over Jonasi\u2019s mistranslation.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cCircle of Life,\u201d which was Oscar-nominated for best original song (losing to the movie\u2019s other song, \u201cCan You Feel the Love Tonight\u201d) and Grammy-nominated for song of the year, begins with the iconic chant: \u201cNants\u2019ingonyama bagithi Baba.\u201d The phrase translates to: \u201cAll hail the king, we all bow in the presence of the king.\u201d Morake\u2019s lawsuit points to an episode of the \u201cOne54\u201d podcast where Jonasi joked that the chant\u2019s lyrics in Zulu translate to: \u201cLook, there\u2019s a lion. Oh my god.\u201d The hosts of the podcast reacted by laughing and saying they thought the translation would be more \u201cbeautiful and majestic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tJonasi allegedly made a similar joke about \u201cThe Lion King\u201d chant during a March 12 performance in Los Angeles and \u201creceived a standing ovation,\u201d per the lawsuit (via The Guardian<\/a>). <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSuch viral statements, [the lawsuit] says, are interfering with Morake\u2019s business relationships with Disney and his income from royalties, causing more than $20 million in actual damages. The lawsuit also seeks $7 million in punitive damages,\u201d The Guardian reports. \u201cThe complaint argues that Jonasi presented his translation \u2018as authoritative fact, not comedy\u2019 so it shouldn\u2019t get the first amendment protections afforded to parody and satire that make fun of other artistic works.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile Jonasi has not commented on the lawsuit against him in any legal matter, he did recently post a video to social media amid his U.S. comedy tour in which he said he was a \u201cbig fan\u201d of Morake\u2019s work. He offered to team up with Morake for a video in which the two could explain \u201cThe Lion King\u2019s\u201d chant\u2019s meaning.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cComedy always has a way of starting conversation,\u201d Jonasi said in the video. \u201cThis is your chance to actually educate people, because now people are listening.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lebohang Morake, the Grammy-winning South African composer who performed the iconic opening chant in \u201cCircle of Life\u201d at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":546973,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[88,206,199076],"class_list":{"0":"post-546972","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies","10":"tag-the-lion-king"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=546972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/546972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/546973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=546972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=546972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=546972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}