Mbube by Solomon Linda and The Evening Birds
South African musician Solomon Linda and his group The Evening Birds composed a song titled Mbube only for several renditions of it to be done with no form of royalties being paid.
TimesLIVE reports that companies in the United States including Disney (the song featured in the Lion King movie) pocketed about $16 million from the song without paying any royalties to Linda who died a pauper.
It was only until 2006 when Disney reached a settlement with Linda’s daughters to pay an undisclosed amount on condition they signed a non-disclosure agreement.
It was later revealed that each of Linda’s daughters received about $250,000 from Disney after the NDA they signed expired. That amount was barely 5% of the revenue the song generated after its release, TimesLIVE further reports.
