My Lion King Forum

After listening to MLK radio today, I came to a (maybe wrong) conclusion of this:
Unlike the first Lion King movie, only two of Simba's Pride songs have any African roots in them: "We Are One" and "He Lives In You".

"He lives In You" doesn't really count because it was composed right after the first Lion King movie ended production, as the Rhythm of the Pridelands CD. This leaves only "We Are One" as a song composed specifically for SP that actually sounds... African. All the other songs composed for SP are much more generic. (and western?)

Did I forget a song or more that has African roots in it (like instruments used and/or chanting in the background), or is "We Are One" the only SP song that can be considered African? (Apart from "He Lives In You")

I guess "In Upendi" might have African roots to some extent, but people never seem to count that one (I don't blame them!)
Apart from that..no African influences that I'm aware of. It's quite a shame really.

"Upendi" has some reggae music in it, and Ladysmith Black Mambazo did some vocals in the song.

Hey, don't forget about "Not One of Us". The song, most likely, has some African roots since it sounds like a choir of South Africans were singing the song.

"Love Will Find a Way" sounds like a ballad, while "My Lullaby" sounds like a typical villian's song with instruments to make it sound moody and dark.

I would say that He Lives In You and Not One of Us are the only ones that can really claim to be African. We Are One sounds more like a western song with African chanting added in afterwards than really a song with African roots. I think Upendi's about 3/4 show tune with 1/4 reggae. Like LionPrince said, Love Will Find a Way is a ballad and My Lullaby is a disney show tune.

Thanks, guys! Yeah,I feel a little... disappointed.
I honestly didn't want to believe myself when I realized that only two songs in the entire movie could count as remotely African. Now I know why I don't exactly like the songs from SP. I love "He Lives In You" and "We Are One" is rather nice as well, but as for the others: I think it's sufficient to say that I have yet to memorize them.

Yeh but Hakuna Matata isn't really African themed, apart form the fact that it is Swahili.

I love the African influence, it felt like being at the World Cup last year.
Maybe because TLK2 was straight-to-video, they wanted to westernise the music style a bit more to make it more appealing? Just a thought because, while TLK did have an excellent soundtrack, it was the "Can You Feel The Love Tonight?" reprise by Elton Jon, that really won it the awards, and that has no African influences... That I could gather at least...

[quote="FlipMode"]While TLK did have an excellent soundtrack, it was the "Can You Feel The Love Tonight?" reprise by Elton Jon, that really won it the awards, and that has no African influences... That I could gather at least...[/quote]

It has the African singers in the background.

[quote="Pixie"]It has the African singers in the background.[/quote]

The Elton John version does not. But I have to agree with this: the Elton John CYFTLT is used only in the credits - not exactly canon material. And don't get me started on which version is better - I think we already had enough threads about it.

Granted, if Elton John didn't insist in placing CYFTLT in the movie, it would have been much worse, almost (if not all) of the songs and scores in the original movie have some African influence (even if it's only chanting in the background). Lebo M. makes any movie where he helps with the music amazing!

I would guess that "In Upendi" could be counted, but I wouldn't want to (I find it a bit annoying XD). But I never really thought of this until now. It's a shame that not all the songs are African. D: I would count "My Lullaby" as African (somewhat) It has chanting in it, but then again, alot of non-African songs do xP I guess "We Are One" and "He Lives in You" are the only "pure-African" songs in Simba's Pride.