It all started with a shrill but clear echoing of a familiar set of notes.
Anyone who grew up during or knew about the Disney Renaissance knows the words to this song very well.
As the tenor continued, three other voices harmonized with him.
The 4th Dimension, a barbershop quartet, performed their own version of the popular tune “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”
And with their performance, audience members were thrilled, amused, and amazed all at the same time.
“In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight,” the lead tenor sang.
At the same time, one of the members hunched his back, hung and flailed his arms about, and mimicked how an ape sounded.
Was the impression good?
We’ll leave you to judge that but what we can all agree with is how pristine and well-rounded their voices are.
This band is called Fourth Dimension.
Fourth Dimension dubbed themselves as the “oldest” quartet as they’ve been performing their wonderful craft for over two decades.
Their group boasts a diverse collection of backgrounds.
One is a retired retail manager for an auto parts store, another is a software engineer, one of them is a state tax auditor, and finally, a retired mailman.
They perform barbershop music.
Their performance is an a capella with four members.
It can be an all-male or an all-female cast but each member performs a specific task of the arrangement.
The lead tenor, the one on the far right, supplies the melody of the performance.
The other three – the tenor, the baritone, and the base – harmonize with him to make a distinct musical performance.
The characteristics of this genre involve a lot of music theory but to help you understand, some of the most iconic ones are Mr. Sandman by The Chordettes, Sh-Boom from The Chords, and The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy by The Andrews Sisters.
While these aren’t traditional barbershop pieces, they show the “ringy” harmony that dominated the wartime decades.
Meanwhile, The Lion Sleeps Tonight traces its origins not to The Lion King.
While it was popularized by Timon and Pumba, the piece is originally from a South African barbershop artist.
Solomon Linda wrote and performed the first iteration of the said song and it was titled Mbube.
While it’s an entirely different song, the patterns and arrangement are almost the same.
The quartet continued to amuse the audience with their comical rendition of the song.
They even started dancing on stage, swaying side to side.
It’s the perfect move to the rather soothing tune about a lion taking a snooze.
But the group’s surprises don’t stop there.
The group also added entertaining embellishments to their number including a festive trilling and movie references.
We won’t be spoiling it for you because we think it’s best if you see the rest of the performance by yourself.
Watch how this quartet made a hilarious rendition of the popular song The Lion Sleeps Tonight in the video below!
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