African Chant
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"Whaaaaaat's on the menuuuuuu? It could beeeeeee ceviiiiiiiiiche. Iiiiiiit's stinkyyyyyyy. Oooooooh it's Pumbaaaaaaa ..."
—"Timon", making up the possible lyrics for The Lion King opening, The Lion King 1½
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The unknown depths of the jungle are shown. The film cuts to a quieter scene, the Jungle Drums beat, and some random African Chant comes from the music. While sometimes the chant may be real, most of the time its just random phrases of Swahili or Zulu in order for it to mean something.
Compare Ominous Latin Chanting.
Examples of African Chant include:
Film - Animation
- The famous opening sunrise in The Lion King is possibly the Trope Maker for more modern examples. It does sound better than most other examples listed, being an actual Zulu phrase.
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Nants ingonyama! Bagaithi baba! |
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- The trope is lampshaded in the POV Sequel, as quoted above
- Rafiki's African Chant while taunting Simba is also a real African phrase. It means, "Thank you very much. Squashed banana. You are a baboon, and I am not."
- "Courtship" and its Dark Reprise, "Breakout/It Comes With a Pool", from Dinosaur.
Film - Live Action
- The go-to-guy if you want genuine African chants: Lebo M.
- District 9 has this in a few scenes.
- Avatar is notorious of this in the scenes with the Navi tribes.
- In the film The Power of One, the song "Mother Africa", as well as the concert, in which the native Africans insult their oblivious white audience.
- In the film Zulu, the Zulu warriors sing a praise song lauding the British defenders as Worthy Opponents before beginning their final assault.
- Road to Zanzibar has a bit of chanting titled "African Etude".
Live Action TV
- The Trope Namer is from the U.S. version of Whose Line Is It Anyway?, which had a game called "African Chant". It involved Wayne Brady singing to an audience member in the style of an African Chant, but the real comedy comes from the three other comedians singing and dancing in the background.
- When Brady was told the name of the game, "African Chant", he (understandably) did not react too well.
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Wayne Brady: Hey, how come I gotta do the African Chant? |
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- The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency TV series has this on occasion, with real African.
- Sally Cruikshank produced a series of animated inserts for Sesame Street involving counting up to a certain number, with the highest being 19 and the lowest being 13 (according to Muppet Wiki, there is no animation for 20).
- Another animated Sesame Street skit involving counting to a certain number had number emerge out of seashells while a chant sounding like "Bading-a-ding bada-bading-a-ding" can be heard in the background.
- Two alphabet songs from the same show are even sung to African tribal music.
- "Mystery Animal" from Zoboomafoo (sung over an animation where a cartoon blob is shown morphing into the animal featured in the episode).
Music
- "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" has a horribly convoluted history, but it was originally a South African pop song (and not a traditional folk piece as later credited) titled "Mbube", which had real Zulu chanting. What made it into the Tokens' version, "wimoweh", is a mispronunciation of the Zulu "uyimbube" ("he is a lion").
- Peter Gabriel takes this and makes it his favorite instrument. See "In Your Eyes" and "Biko" for examples.
- The Christian song Siyahamba, often translated in English as "We are Marching in the light of God".
- Shakira's "Waka Waka". Justified.
- Zulu chanting is present in several tracks on Paul Simon's Graceland, featuring most prominently in "Homeless", where a choir of black singers lament about the destruction of their homes in a storm.
- Singer Alex Boye frequently incorporates African-language chants and interludes into his recordings; it's rapidly becoming one of his trademarks.
Theatre
- Show Boat: The Dahomey dancers in the 1893 World's Fair sequence frighten off white visitors with their frenzied chanting and barbaric manners, then reveal it's a load of Big Applesauce -- "our home just ain't Dahomey at all" but New York.
Video Games
- The 'Baba Yetu' opening-sequence from Civilization 4. It's actually just a Swahili rendition of the classic 'Our Father' prayer - but in Swahili, it comes across as some sort of tribal chant.
- In Macro Zone forest levels of Serious Sam II and some of the jungle levels, a fight music has these stock sounds.
- The Adventure Field's Mystic Ruins in Sonic Adventure.
- Mazuri in Sonic Unleashed.
- Shivers: Happens in the background music while in the Shaman room.
Web Original
- Doug Walker has... things to say about this trope:
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Western Animation
- Zecora the zebra from My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, speaks and chants african-esque sounds which freaks all the ponies of Ponyville out and they assume she's evil. Word of God is that they wanted her to be speaking authentic Swahili in Bridle Gossip, but they didn't have the time or resources. Instead, they got the voice actor to make up some African-sounding gibberish. Lauren Faust said that she likes to imagine Zecora is speaking Zebra in lieu of Swahili. [dead link]
- The Animaniacs parody of The Lion King has this:
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Ahhh la wain-ya! Ee-malla ee ya away! |
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- "Circle of Poo" from South Park.
- Itchy and Scratchy: The Musical featured background chants sounding like "Itchy Scratchy, Itchy Itchy Scratchy..."