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Lebo M: Taking the lion’s share of attention

Lebo M: Taking the lion’s share of attention
Lebo M during the 3rd DSTV Mzansi Viewers Choice Awards at the Ticketpro Dome on March 14, 2020 in Johannesburg, South Africa. The DStv Mzansi Viewers' Choice Awards is a South African award show that honours the year's biggest achievements in television, radio, music, sports, and comedy, voted by viewers living in South Africa. (Photo by Gallo Images/Oupa Bopape)

Lebo M has made millions from Disney’s ‘Lion King’ franchise, making him one of the world’s most successful composers. But a new reality show reveals him as a domineering father struggling as a family man.

First published in the Daily Maverick 168 weekly newspaper.

It may be rude to ask someone how much they earn, but a quick search of homes at the Blair Atholl Golf and Equestrian Estate tells you that Lebohang Morake has probably raked in more dollars than he will ever need as he heads towards his retirement years.

Lebo M’s fancy home, situated on Gary Player’s original farm in Centurion, just outside Pretoria, is used as an establishing shot for his new reality television show currently being screened on Showmax, and is where the bald and bespectacled entertainer has settled with his family – even though he still regularly commutes between Los Angeles and Gauteng.

Best believe that the choral director and the man credited with additional music and lyrics, additional vocal score, vocal arrangements of the highest-grossing Broadway musical of all time is doing alright, thank you very much.

The Lion King opened on 13 November 1997 and has been running since, making it the third-longest running Broadway show of all time. Last year, the cumulative box office of the stage version was $9.1-billion, Disney told Forbes in October.

Over the years, it has been staged in cities including Toronto, Sydney, Johannesburg, Paris, Madrid, Seoul, and The Hague.

By 2017, The Lion King franchise had made more money for Disney than all of the Star Wars films combined. Last year, the figure was around $11.6-billion – the most ever for a stage and screen title, making it the top-earning franchise in box office history.

Meanwhile, 2019’s live-action remake of the 1994 movie, this time directed by Jon Favreau, is already the seventh highest-grossing movie of all time, with more than $1.6-billion made at the box office.

The name “Lebo M” is peppered over several credits. If young ’uns in South Africa finally woke up to the work of this Grammy Award winner, it may be thanks to his involvement with the remake, which stars James Earl Jones, Beyoncé, John Kani and Childish Gambino. It may, however, also be because of the salacious details of his personal life in the tabloids, which have tended to overshadow his achievements as a producer and composer.

Now, with the premiere of his reality show Lebo M: Coming Home on Showmax at the beginning of December last year, the man whose voice is the first you hear in Disney’s 1994 animated classic, is reintroducing himself to the South African public.

In promo material, Lebohang Morake is quoted as saying: “I was initially sceptical about a reality show. But having recently learned no one really knows who I really am in South Africa, my beloved home country of birth, I’ve become romantic about opening up and having my fans and audience here hang out with Angela and my kids via this conversation in 10 episodes.”

Alas, he does very little to endear himself to viewers here. He often comes across as a brazen, domineering and impatient father and partner. If he is meant to appear as a hero, he does not seem particularly fussed about living up to that. Instead, he comes across as the pantomime villain – serving only to give credence to gossip about his life.

Lebo M has been married and divorced four times – and is back together with his third wife, Angela Ngani-Casara. He has had to defend his romantic track record and accusations of being a womaniser, while also helping to raise nine children, one of whom passed away more than 20 years ago.

Of course, a successful celebrity reality television show is less about historical achievements and events than it is about the current day-to-day controversies, frustrations and ambitions of its subject.

So, while this show wants to celebrate the grand achievements and accolades of the man who’s been an unmistakable and indispensable figure of the enduring and widely popular Disney franchise, family tensions are also ramped up a few notches to enliven it. It’s about a man finally coming back home to make good and struggling (rather, fighting) to adjust to his role as a family man – producing some vicious moments.

In one of several scenes in Episode 3, for example, he argues with his son Tshepiso about why he has failed to meet his grandson or build a relationship with the mother of the baby. Lebo M argues that he can’t be accused of not caring when, thanks to his vast cash reserves, he ensured that his grandson would not be born “in a clinic in Hillbrow”.

“I decided that this child is going to be born in a first-class environment with a first-class doctor, and I made sure of that. The child was born in the same hospital, same presidential suite that your other sister was born in. I did my part!” he shouts.

It’s not pretty viewing. Indeed, there are very few heartwarming moments.

Considering the noise around the man and his past, why would he heap even further attention on his family?

Speaking to DM168, he says: “It has always been a family joke that we are a reality show family. I did not have to convince them [to sign on for a reality show with Showmax], as it also created a platform for my children to showcase their talents.”

A quick search of “Lebo M” and the headlines are not hard to find: “Lebo M dispels ‘womaniser’ perception in reality series”, “Yet another break up for Lebo M”, “Lebo M’s ex in grave pain”, “Lebo M shows of his new bae”, “Lebo M files defamation lawsuit against ex fiancée Zoe Mthiyane”, and so on.

“What has been splashed in the tabloids has been mainly about my marriages [and] not my family,” he says.

“I don’t believe falling in and out of love is a phenomenon limited only to me. Indeed, the tabloids with ulterior motives orchestrated and created that monster. Being a public figure did not help, especially if there was always a malicious intent on the part of the [journalists] who wrote most of these stories – with specific people manipulating them.”

Back in September, Sunday World reported that ex-wife Nandi Ndlovu had discovered that her name had been scrapped off of their late son’s tombstone epitaph. Their son reportedly  drowned in a swimming pool at their Randburg home. Lebo M has launched a defamation lawsuit via a Los Angeles court.

Lebo M said more on this scandal and, of course, his rags-to-riches story will be expounded upon in his upcoming memoir.  Come to think of it, this man’s topsy-turvy life makes for a riveting (and exasperating) watch. DM168

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper which is available for free to Pick n Pay Smart Shoppers at these Pick n Pay stores.

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