My Lion King Forum

"Disclaimer": Since Rhythm of the Pride Lands was released right after the first movie came out, I am posting this topic under its main subforum. On with actual topic:

While recently listening to the song "Lala", I randomly remembered reading a YouTube comment on it way back when I was first getting into the TLK fandom and discovering the RotPL album. The comment mentioned how Lebo M was going through the death of his father during the production of this album, and that those feelings are released in a way within this song.

I recall doing some research trying to find out if ity's true or not, and coming up dry on any cocnlusion. Since I couldn't find anything about it, I am assuming that the comment was wrong, but my curiousity was recently peaked again: Was the comment correct or not?

Figured this would be a good as a place to ask as any, especially since for the next two weeks I won't have much time to do more digging around about it anyways.

And final note: even if the comment was wrong, Lala is still a great song. My favorite on the entire album, I think.

I'm not certain of it either, but it's possible that he was. Lyrically, the song seems revolve around more about the loss of a brother than a father, oddly enough. Given how it doesn't exactly reflect the film's events, perhaps there is some truth to it, only people making such comments are getting mixed up over the family member who passed at the time.

I like the song too. I also like the nice yet underutilized theme the bulk of it was based on in the movie's score (used as some sort of friendship or love leitmotif for Simba and Nala), and the choral part being used during the scene where Simba and Rafiki meet. The melody itself seems derived off of Simba's Busa motif. A kind of slow and pensive variant of it.

I read a similar comment posted by a YouTube user underneath this upload of "Lala":



The bridge of the Zulu lyrics translate into "Oh, my mother's child / Oh, my dear brother / I cry for you". So, the lyrics mostly point to the loss of a brother rather than a father. I did do some research into it when I first read it years ago and again before I posted, but I have no found information that Lebo M of having a brother let alone losing him to death. If he did (and I wouldn't be surprised), it makes the lyrics more poignant and I mourn for his loss.