Linda family lose sleep over KZN’s memorial plan

I would have expected right from the inception they would have taken us along . . . I am quite distressed.

Themba Dladla, Linda’s grandson and chairman of the Solomon Linda Trust

● It took a decades-long battle for the family of Solomon Linda to get their fair share of earnings from one of the most catchy tunes of the previous century.

Now his descendants are demanding to know why they have not been consulted over plans to build a statue in honour of the singer and composer of Mbube, the tune that evolved into the multimilliondollar hit The Lion Sleeps Tonight.

The KwaZulu-Natal government has put out a tender inviting bids from artists to create a life-sized bronze of Linda. It will be placed in Pomeroy, in rural Msinga, where the singer was born and first honed his a cappella craft.

Contacted by the Sunday Times this week, the Linda family were in the dark about the project.

Granddaughter Zee Nzama said: “This is the first we have heard about it.” Nzama, who is a member of the Solomon Linda Trust, said they would be meeting soon to consider what should be done.

Themba Dladla, trust chairman and Linda’s grandson, said: “I would have expected right from the inception they would have taken us along . . . I am quite distressed.”

Dladla stressed that the family were not opposed to a statue, but wanted to know how it might be part of bigger efforts to celebrate the Linda legacy and music and whether it would benefit the family and community of Msinga, perhaps through tourism.

The KwaZulu-Natal Office of the Premier, which invited bids for the statue, did not answer questions from the Sunday Times.

However, in the tender document and at a compulsory briefing for artists in Pietermaritzburg earlier this month, officials stressed that the bidders must “liaise with family members regularly as part of manufacture”.

Among the officials and interested parties at the briefing were artists Andries Botha and Musa Dhlomo. Durban-based Botha is no stranger to controversy. His popular steel-and-stone elephant statue project in the city’s Warwick Triangle precinct stood uncompleted for many years, apparently because the late ANC eThekwini head, John Mchunu, believed the elephants resembled the logo of the IFP.

Whoever wins the Linda job will face another challenge: the family know of only one photograph of the singer-composer.

There appears to be a dearth of original likenesses of Linda, perhaps because he died poor in 1962.

Although Mbube (Lion), which Linda composed in 1939, brought him a considerable local following, he had signed over his rights to the tune and reaped few of the benefits as it grew in popularity.

His family fought a long, ultimately successful battle for recognition and royalties, with Disney at the centre of a legal challenge.

Journalist Rian Malan, who has long championed the Linda family cause, this week welcomed news that a statue was being planned. “Solomon Linda is the guy who created the most famous melody that came out of Africa. He’s a guy people should know about . . . they should name a street after him,” he said. — Additional reporting by Michael Croeser