Why Precious Does Not Like Lion King
(Thoughts on Beyoncé’s album, “Lion King: The Gift”)
On a normal day, I’d start this article with how reviews are supposed to be personal opinions. I might go on to further advise any reader who feels differently about any thought expressed in a review to go on to make their own review. But maybe today is not entirely normal after all.
For indeed, sometimes our opinions are not entirely ours. We only come to own them with time. As a matter of fact, drawing some backing from Locke’s postulation, perhaps every opinion we ever held is a distant eventuality of a prior interaction of the mind with a novel concept. This, of course would explain why in most cases, the most rational opinions are from the most educated minds, with notable exceptions of course.
But away from the validity of opinions and their sources for now, this article seeks to express my opinions on Beyoncé’s album, “Lion King: The Gift”. The interesting part of the opinion is that they are not entirely mine, or more correctly put, perhaps it is the words that I have chosen to express these thoughts that are not mine.
For my generation, the Lion King series was one of the highlights of our childhood. It, therefore, is not totally surprising that when Disney announced that they would be remaking the movie, the reception was somewhat warm. After seeing the other remakes from Disney (Beauty and the Beast and Cinderella), I did not expect a lot of changes to the plot of the original Lion King. This way I was able to enjoy the movie without any exaggerated expectations. This is why scrolling through my Twitter timeline, a friend’s comment about the film caught me a little by surprise.
Precious posted a comment wondering how an African Lion had a British accent. Like a number of other works, she had felt that the movie was not representative enough. And although, I understood the premise upon which Precious was trying to make a point. I did not find the Lion King example best suited for the point she was trying to make.
Firstly, because the movie was a remake; an attempt to improve a product that people loved in 1994, perhaps with the hope that more people would love it. And we did, I remember finishing the lines and singing along with some of my favourite characters. Mufasa had a British accent in ’94. Hans Zimmer and Elton John made some of the best numbers in the film. If we loved them back then, who says we can’t now? But again, this article is not about the Lion King movie, at least not primarily.
The casting of the Disney remakes has been quite impressive thus far, with names like Lily James; Richard Madden; Helena Bonham Carter; and a host of others (including Nigerian Nonso Anozie) in Cinderella and Emma Watson; Dan Stevens; Audra McDonald etc. in Beauty and the Beast. The Lion King movie did not fall short of expectations in this regard. But there is no gainsaying that one of the biggest names in the Cast list is the queen herself; Beyoncé Knowles-Carter. Beyoncé voiced Nala, Simba’s love interest in the Lion King movie. So, when Beyoncé dropped an album by the same title as the movie, most of us looked forward to what the young lioness had to say.
The first thing that makes Lion King: The Gift as an album interesting is its seemingly reactive appeal. The association of the album with the Lion King franchise might have been more parasitic than symbiotic with respect to appeal. Particularly considering that the album was also associated with African. The album might have helped sell the movie but does that arrow go in both directions? (Sales in this context is not only monetary).
Or better still, the question that simplifies this is “would Beyoncé still have given this gift if she didn’t get the Lion King role?”. I guess we’ll never know.
Away from intentions, all it takes is one audition to appreciate the production of the album. With a lot of Africans (since Mama Burna has kuku said all of us are Africans las las) showing up on the album. Interestingly, there are claims that there was not enough balance in the selection of artistes that featured on the album. While most of the African artistes featured came from West Africa, it’s easy to agree that the album might have sounded better with a few Eastern and Southern African names. (Sauti Sol? Diamond? Nasty C?)
“Brown Skin Girl”, the one song that had everyone singing along (deliberately or not) for a while. The track was a partnership between Nigerian Wizkid and the queen herself, with some assistance with opening and closing the song from Blue Ivy. And of course, with good songwriting, you can trust the star boy to deliver. This he does, standing shoulder to shoulder with Beyoncé in the song that had the world talking. Beyoncé does another interesting Nigerian partnership on ‘Otherside’. However, unlike in Brown Skin Girl, it is not with any popular name in the pop industry. It is with a faceless voice that causes solemn nostalgia with a touch of the ecclesiastical Yoruba song used on the song.
It is hard to call what Burna Boy does on the album a feature as the Don Gordon comfortably sits on a whole track by himself. This becomes even interesting as he conveniently delivers the track about ‘having sense’ in Yoruba and with a ‘zlatanish’ undertone too. Tiwa Savage and Mr. Eazi are also found cozying in ‘Keys to the Kingdom’.
It is tempting to end the list of Nigerians on the Lion King album here but Yemi Alade and Tekno gives the album some ‘gbas gbos’ vibe in ‘Don’t Jealous Me’. If anything, I doubt anyone would be jealous of their songwriting skills on that song. But then again, maybe being on a Beyoncé album is worthy of jealousy.
Apart from the Nigerians, Beyoncé has other ‘Africans’ by mama Burna’s definition on the album; Jay Z, Pharrell Williams, Childish Gambino, Kendrick Lamar and a few others.
The Lion King album speaks a lot about finding self, with quite a number of tracks trying to encourage Africans to find themselves. This is perhaps what makes it a gift. But I still do not think the ‘Lion King’ brand by itself is African enough to associate it with an album with that level of ‘africanness’. Perhaps this is part of the intentions behind the album; to help sell the modest levels of ‘Africanness’ in the Lion King brand. After all, it’s 2019 and there seem to be an improving level of self-consciousness in the African audience, plus Kendrick Lamar did have a ‘Black Panther’ song.
However, I think the Lion King album has the same issue that my friend, Precious had postulated about the Lion King movie. For as much as Beyoncé tries to make the album African, the foreign accent is still quite loud and clear.
