As Beverly and I sit in the darkness in our camp in Duba in
Botswana, we can see a shape out in the tall grass not far away. We know
it is a lioness because she settled there at sunset and is now fast
asleep, quite comfortable just outside of the glow of our small
campfire. Sometimes a song will pop into your head at moments like this,
songs that just seem appropriate at the time. In some cases, a song
stays “alive” and enjoyable for decades, taking on new life for each
generation with each rendition of it. Photograph by Beverly Joubert
One example is “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” which for most people is
one of those much-loved songs that survives quite well as it drags
memories personal and indicative of its era. “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”
dates back to the 1920s. when the South African singer Solomon
Linda composed it as “Mbube,” a name that in Zulu points to the central
spirit of the song over generations: the lion.
The song probably warns that it is a particularly bad idea to wake a
sleeping lion near the village. It’s a simple message of caution, but it
is also a message of magic and the beauty of nature, the quiet jungle
at night, the distant roar (or snore) of a lion.
As I listened to the song recently I started considering the
different eras this song spans, for us, for lions, and for those
villagers that have to tiptoe around at night.
In 1920 when “Mbube” was written, the confluence of Man and Lion was
quite small and unlikely, even though there were probably around
a million wild lions in Africa at the time. Flashpoints were few because
we numbered less than 120 million people in the whole of Africa.
Forty years later, in 1960, there was an awakening of the song when
it was released in a new version: “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” It broke
out and became the #1 hit song in 1961.
I estimate that there were around 450,000 lions then, but the human
population had doubled to about 300 million people as The Tokens’
version and Jay Siegel’s famous falsetto voice belted out the lyrics.
The points on the graph, as a young Jay brought the song alive, hinted
at a disturbing trend that I started investigating: Each time the human
population in Africa doubles, lion populations roughly halve. Photograph by Beverly Joubert
In 1994 the song popped up again in The Lion King. At that
time we had roughly 200,000 lions–halved again–while the human
population had once again doubled, to more than 600 million.
But then the curve suddenly started to accelerate. In the last
20 years, each time our own population goes up by a quarter, lion
populations halve.
So it was of great interest to me when a new artist, Beau Davidson,
approached us in 2015 after his Emmy nomination for his song “Blessed,”
to collaborate on a new version of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” Beau is
very collaborative and his idea was to team up with Jay Siegel, who sang
the 1961 version, to re-imagine the song.
A lot has changed in 55 years, not just lion and human population
numbers. Today we have the ability to add to music high-quality images
and to distribute it all on social media platforms.
More importantly — and this why we agreed to collaborate with this
project — proceeds may be generated for conservation of lions. Beau has
offered that all the money raised by his venture will be donated to the
National Geographic Big Cats Initiative.
Lead producer Jimmy Nichols set up the recording session at Reba
McEntire’s Starstuck Studios in Nashville, with African percussion, big
brass, and the voices of Davidson and Siegel, managed by Executive
Producer Paul Kasofsky of Rainbow Management Talent. Nashville, always a
music epicenter, became the hub for this global collaboration.
Just as the process started, the world was struck by the senseless and illegal killing of a male lion in Zimbabwe. The death of Cecil the Lion,
as it became known, attracted the attention of millions of people
worldwide, and our own efforts to stop lion hunting came into the
spotlight once again.
Some years before, we had established the National Geographic Big
Cats Initiative to save these iconic animals, and we have seen some
success, with over 80 projects funded in 27 countries.
Dr. Palmer, the dentist who shot Cecil, was basically run out of
town. Even though the lion was shot in Zimbabwe, President Ian Khama of
Botswana, a neighbouring country, issued a PI (Presidential
Interdiction, basically a blacklisting) against Palmer, in case he ever
considered coming to our country. It was a signal and protest from
Botswana against safari hunting killing, and a message that this kind of
behavior will not be tolerated in Botswana.
We agreed to help “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” project, and a short
film, cut by our editor Candice Odgers, helpd give the song
another life, placing it in context with footage of lions.
We are at a tipping point in the world of conservation now, where
millions of people protest a lion being shot (at last), presidents weigh
in, and artists like Beau and Jay get behind a cause that can steer
people to more compassion and caring for the wilderness and for lions.
But as this film and song are released we may now have 20,000 wild
lions surviving amongst 1.2 billion people in Africa, and the curve on
my graph has a very steep dip in it.
The race to stop this extinction is underway. No one can stop time,
and the release of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” is not an attempt to stop
the clock, but it does give us the opportunity to step up and break the
trend of lion population declines since the song was first written and
performed by a songwriter who cleaned the studio in Johannesburg during
the day, and sang of a village in the darkness at night. I hope that the
lyrics “Hush my darling … the lion sleeps tonight” never become words
of an anthem a hundred years from now, when the lions of Africa are
forever asleep. Photograph by Beverly Joubert
Please take a look at the final music video at: https://youtu.be/52chF7DWJcY and if you would like to help our Big Cats Initiative at National Geographic to save lions please visit our www.causeanuproar.org website.
Article by Dereck Joubert Photographs by Beverly Joubert
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