His inimitable voice at the opening of the Disney film The Lion King moved audiences around the world. Thirty years later, singer Lebo M returns in Mufasa, which he approached as a “challenge”.
Zulu singing Here is the Lionwho starts the song Circle of Life at the beginning of the cartoon released in 1994, made known this South African singer, producer and composer, born 60 years ago in the township of Soweto. And after the enormous impact left by The Lion KingLebo M says he felt the pressure of having to do as well as he did thirty years ago in the prequel to the Disney animated classic. “I enjoyed writing the opening sequence of the first film (…), but writing and singing a new sequence thirty years later was really a challenge,” he said on the sidelines of a preview. London premiere of Mufasa : The Lion Kingdirected by Barry Jenkins and expected in theaters on Wednesday (read box).
For Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote the music for the new Disney opus, his contribution was indispensable. “It was my dream. I insisted as soon as I arrived on the project because I think it is the secret touch” of the film, declared for his part the author and composer of the musicals In the Heights et Hamilton. Lebo M “is the sound of Lion Kingand its choral arrangements that were added to the songs that I wrote really give the impression that this film is linked to the original (cartoon), ”he added.
Despite the pressure, the process was relatively quick, says Lebo M: he arrived at the studio early in the morning, started playing “with cymbals and a bongo (…) and at 11 a.m., when the director and everyone arrived, I had finished the song. According to him, the success of the project is due to the “incredible energy” that emerged from his work with Lin-Manuel Miranda. “There was very little discussion about the strings, the melody. We just went for it and it all flowed.”
“Survival mode”
Born in 1964, the singer, whose full name is Lebohang Morake, has become essential for directors wishing to bring an authentic African touch to their productions. He produced and composed songs for the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2010 FIFA World Cup held in South Africa, and continues a creative collaboration with film score composer Hans Zimmer, who he accompanies on his world tours.
But success was not immediate, and Lebo M fell on hard times. At 14, he became the youngest singer in South African clubs. Victim of racism and homeless for two years in Los Angeles in the mid-1980s, despite poverty, “I had music,” he says. Despite the success, the artist maintains the scars of his past in the street and claims to have “remained in survival mode all the time”.
According to him, the American entertainment industry, however, allowed him to “succeed more (than he) could have done elsewhere in the world”. And after several decades of working relatively in the shadows, he now says he is ready to meet the public, with a first series of concerts scheduled for next April in South Africa. “I know that there is a certain expectation of people in the world who want to see Lebo M in concert, not only as a guest (of other artists) nor through films,” he said.
Mufasa: the splits
by Barry Jenkins
At the helm of Mufasa: The Lion King, director Barry Jenkins, Oscar winner for Moonlight (2016), about the youth of a gay black boy who grows up with a drug addict mother. The universe of The Lion King is light years away from his previous projects, which also focus on the history of African-Americans, such as the film If Beale Street Could Talk (2018), adapted from a novel by the black writer James Baldwin, or the miniseries on slavery The Underground Railroad (2021). Before undertaking this big gap between independent cinema and 3D animation blockbuster, his “first reaction”, he says, “was that this film was not for me”. “It was only when I read the script that I realized (that) there were so many themes, so many dynamics between the characters (…) that were directly related to everything I had already explored. »
From a technical point of view, this first experience in virtual animation was “a lot of fun,” says Barry Jenkins, who says he felt “handicapped” for a long time as a film student and then a young director, due to that he came from “a very poor neighborhood”. Working “from scratch,” the Disney experience, based on “our imagination,” made him feel “like a kid in a candy store.”
As he worked on the film, the 45-year-old filmmaker noticed the “similarities” between his struggles and those of Mufasa, whose childhood his film recounts. Starting with the bond that unites him to his close collaborators for 25 years, who have “changed (his) life”. “Mufasa does the same thing (…) He was separated from his family and he built his own new family to become the great king (that we) know. I found this very inspiring. I am not a king. (…) But I found a way to build a life with this kind of family that I built myself.”
Mufasa: The Lion King, by Barry Jenkins. Released Wednesday.
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