I Wan’na Be Like You

The viewer is lured deep into a dilapidated glasshouse, a place where nature is traditionally tamed and studied, by a ghostly figure, dancing to a variation on the popular song from Disney’s The Jungle Book (1967). As the music fades out, he makes way for the vocal group Black Harmony, offering a reinterpretation of the song in their own language - Lugbara. I Wan’na Be Like You deconstructs and reconstructs the novel, film, that song and their legacies.