Most comedians spend a career hoping one joke travels. Learnmore Jonasi had one travel so far it landed him in a California federal court, and then he turned the whole ordeal into a tour. With the lawsuit behind him and a New York Comedy Festival date on the calendar, the Chimanimani comic is heading into the last stretch of 2026 with more attention than at any point since his America's Got Talent run.
From booed to Golden Buzzer
The short version of the Jonasi story is a long one. Born Learnmore Mwanyenyeka in Mutare in 1993 and raised by his grandparents in Chimanimani, he moved to Harare after his O-levels to try stand-up. According to his Wikipedia biography, his first recorded set, at Simuka Comedy Night at Book Café in October 2012, ended with the crowd booing him, and he spent close to two years doing free open mics before anything clicked.
What clicked was Bulawayo. Working at the Umahlekisa comedy club alongside Ntando Van Moyo from 2014, he built the persona he still performs today, the Village Boy from Chimanimani. The awards followed: back to back NAMA wins as Outstanding Comedian in 2019 and 2020, and Pan African Comic of the Year at South Africa's Savanna Comic Choice Awards in 2019.
In 2021 he relocated to Pittsburgh on an offer from comedian Steve Hofstetter's Steel City Arts Foundation. He went on to win the 2023 Boston Comedy Festival and the audience choice award at the Jersey City Comedy Festival, and in 2024 Terry Crews hit the Golden Buzzer for him on America's Got Talent. He finished in the Top 5 of Season 19, and he has been touring an hour called Far from the Village, built on village life, immigrant life and the gap between Zimbabwe and America.
The joke that cost $27 million, almost
Then came the lion. Asked on the One54 Africa podcast what the famous opening chant of The Lion King's "Circle of Life" means, Jonasi joked that it roughly translates to spotting a lion and panicking. Lebo M, the Grammy-winning South African composer behind those vocals, did not laugh. NBC News reported that he filed a $27 million federal suit in California on 16 March, arguing the chant is royal praise poetry and that the mistranslation damaged his life's work. The original complaint bundled a federal trademark claim with defamation, trade libel and interference with economic advantage.
Jonasi found out in the most public way possible. Rolling Stone reported that he was served with the papers while on stage at The Laugh Factory, and he posted the clip himself. He launched a GoFundMe for his legal costs and started selling "Look, it's a lawsuit" T-shirts, telling fans in his fundraiser letter that a bit of humour had become a legal fight.
How the case fell apart
Jonasi's lawyers responded with a motion under California's anti-SLAPP statute, a law designed to throw out lawsuits that target protected speech. Rather than fight it, Lebo M changed tack. In July, News24 reported, he filed an amended complaint that dropped every one of the original state law claims, defamation included, and rebuilt the case around federal trademark claims over Jonasi's "It's a lion" catchphrase. Jonasi said the question had become whether Lebo M owned any trademark rights to the phrase at all, and his team moved to have what was left dismissed.
It never got that far. On 10 July, Lebo M voluntarily withdrew the case, without prejudice, with Judge Josephine L. Staton signing off.
The two camps describe that ending very differently. Lebo M's team has maintained it was a mutual settlement and a withdrawal, not a defeat. Jonasi and his lawyers say there was no settlement at all. The court's later ruling leans firmly one way: it found that Jonasi had achieved exactly what his anti-SLAPP motion set out to do, and that he was the prevailing party.
On 28 August, according to IOL, Judge Staton ordered Lebo M to pay Jonasi $39,560 in attorneys' fees. His lawyers had asked for $45,935, and the court trimmed it after spotting billing errors. The more striking detail, reported by The Herald, is that Jonasi had personally paid only about $5,350, because his legal team heavily discounted its work to defend his free speech rights. Under the statute, what he actually paid made no difference to what Lebo M owes.
Lebo M told the Sunday Times the matter was never about "a war of personalities," and said his team is still weighing its options.
Turning the lawsuit into material
Jonasi did what comedians do with pain. He named a tour after it. Whose Lion Is It Anyway? came home to Zimbabwe in August, according to Greedy South, with dates in Chimanimani, Bulawayo, Masvingo and Harare. It was his first run of shows in the country since he headlined Shoko Festival's comedy night in 2024, and starting the tour in Chimanimani, the village at the centre of his act, was a pointed choice. The hour is also now available as a special on his YouTube channel.
He also appeared on BET's reboot, ComicView: Rooftop Series, this year, keeping him in front of American TV audiences while the case played out.
What's next
His official site lists a busy October: the Meadowvale Theatre in Mississauga, Canada, on 9 October, Bricktown Comedy Club in Oklahoma City on 15 October, the Loony Bin in Tulsa on 16 and 17 October, and the Big Diamond Comedy Festival in Bentonville, Arkansas, on 24 October. The biggest date is 8 November, when the New York Comedy Festival presents him at The Stand in Manhattan.
A festival slot in New York is the kind of booking that puts a comic in front of the bookers, network executives and streaming scouts who decide who gets a televised special. Nothing has been announced on that front, so treat it as the obvious next rung rather than a done deal. The other open question is whether Lebo M's camp tries again. A dismissal without prejudice leaves that door technically ajar, though a court has now ruled that the first attempt ended in Jonasi's favour.
Why it matters beyond the jokes
For Zimbabwe, Jonasi is proof of a route that barely existed a decade ago: a comic who built his act on distinctly local material, in clubs in Harare and Bulawayo, and exported it without sanding it down for foreign audiences. His Golden Buzzer came from telling Americans about Chimanimani, not from pretending to be from somewhere else.
The lawsuit also raised a genuinely African question that did not get settled in court. Who gets to joke about shared cultural heritage, and where does playful translation end and disrespect begin? Lebo M framed it as protecting cultural dignity. Jonasi framed it as just a joke, telling NBC News that comedy has a way of starting a conversation. The anti-SLAPP ruling answered the legal question in the US, and the court was careful to say it wasn't ruling on which translation was right. The cultural debate is one African creatives will keep running into as their work reaches global audiences.
For now, the Village Boy is back on the road, with a better story than he had a year ago.
Sources
- Composer behind 'The Lion King' opening vocals sues comedian for $27M over 'Circle of Life' joke, NBC News
- Lion King composer sues comedian, Rolling Stone Australia
- 'I will be fine': Comedian Learnmore Jonasi responds as Lebo M drops defamation claims, News24
- US court orders Lebo M to pay comedian Learnmore Jonasi R640,000, IOL
- Lebo M ordered to pay US$39,560 to Zimbabwean comedian, The Herald
- Lebo M weighs legal options after court ruling in Learnmore Jonasi matter, Sunday Times
- Learnmore Jonasi is headed home with the question "Whose Lion Is It Anyway?", Greedy South
- Learnmore Jonasi, Wikipedia
- Learnmore Jonasi official site, upcoming shows and New York Comedy Festival Presents: Learnmore Jonasi, The Stand NYC
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