Africa's World Cup: Critical Reflections on Play, Patriotism, Spectatorship, and Space

World Cup Music and Football Noise: The Lion King, Waka Waka, and the Vuvuzela

61 World Cup music and Football Noise The Lion King, Waka Waka, and the Vuvuzela JeNNIFeR doYle WITh eSPN’S bRoAdCAST of the World Cup’s opening match, my fellow tweeters began to crack jokes about the Lion King. We imagined Rafiki and Mufasa calling the matches and half expected the referees to lift up the Jabulani to announce the arrival of the New Ball. Some folks simply observed that there was a good reason for this resemblance.The score used by ESPN to frame its coverage was written by Lisle Moore. The Utah composer gave us muscular music for a sporting event, upbeat music for a media event organized around putting us all in the mood to buy a shirt, a ball, or a Coke. Layered over the orchestral swells are the oddly familiar sounds of African voices—or, I should say, African-sounding voices. Africa is scored here as a noble landscape, peopled by a unified chorus, singing together in a harmonic convergence of tribal cultures. “With the exception of the African choir,” reported the Salt Lake Tribune on June 10, 2010, “all of the music is performed by Utah musicians .”The “African choir” lending this score a sense of location is actually made up of members of the Lion King’s Broadway cast. The choir from New York City was hired to sonically channel an idea of African authenticity keyed to the ears of ESPN’s U.S. audience. The same of course holds true for all scores produced by the World Cup broadcasting networks, as they reach for music that their imagined audience will understand. Without a doubt, we are hearing not African music but, to 62 • AFRICA’S WoRld CuP invoke the Congolese philosopher Valentin Mudimbe, a musical “idea of Africa.”1 Much can be gained by listening to the sound draped over the 2010 World Cup.This is nowhere more obvious than the “Official 2010 FIFA World Cup™ Song,” “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa),” sung by Colombian pop star Shakira and Freshlyground, a South African Afrofusion band. As numerous bloggers have pointed out, the global pop hit has a clear relationship to a Cameroonian military song, “Zangaléwa,” popularized by the group Golden Sounds in 1986. “Waka Waka” does not just borrow from “Zangaléwa”—listening to the two reveals that the chorus to “Waka Waka” is a direct use of “Zangaléwa.” Dibussi Tande, a Cameroonian digital activist, places this appropriation within a longer history of intellectual theft in Africa. In a May 23, 2010, post on his blog Scribbles from the Den, Tande begins with Michael Jackson’s use of a hit song by Cameroonian makossa master Mano Dibango.2 The words and melody of “Soul Makossa” provide the distinctive sound of “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’,” the opening track on Jackson’s Thriller album. Dibango sued Jackson and won. Dibango’s song was actually the B side of “Movement Ewondo,” a song composed for the 1972 African Nations Cup hosted by Cameroon and won by Congo-Brazzaville. It’s a frenetic football score in which strings seems to scurry underneath Dibango’s expressive and light-footed sax. Jackson’s theft of recognizable lyrics and melodies pales in comparison with what Shakira and Sony music pulled off with “Waka Waka.” Given their use of a song known to a generation of fans of African pop, it’s surprising that they thought they could get away with such plagiarism . But, of course, that is how entitlement works—you do not notice the theft of that which you feel is already yours. Tande points out that the origins of the song were only acknowledged by FIFA, Shakira, and others in response to online activism by those who were horrified to see the song stolen. Under pressure from the Cameroonian musicians and their advocates, FIFA stated that “Waka Waka” is a “remix” of the Golden Sounds hit. This appropriation of African music into a musical idea of Africa is a never-ending story. “For decades, African artists have had their works plagiarized by the West with little or no compensation or acknowledgement,” writes Tande. “The most memorable example of the theft of the intellectual rights of an African artist is that of Solomon Popoli Linda who in 1939 World Cup Music and Football Noise • 63 wrote the song ‘Mbube’ and received 10 shillings (less than $US 2) for his efforts. The song which...