Little is known about An Actual Rhinoceros. His total known recorded oeuvre consists of a single track, "Rhinoceros," recorded in Amboseli National Park in Kenya, that appears on Nonesuch's 1973 release, Animals of Africa: Sounds of the Jungle, Plain and Bush. It soon becomes clear to even the most jaded listener, though, that that 2:22-long track, recorded in a single, one-take session with no prior rehearsal, reveals he had/has talent to burn.

Much of the reason we know so little about this act is that, in a callous act even more shocking than those deals struck by record companies back in the '50s that shafted blues singers on song rights and royalties due to them, Nonesuch made no effort to sign any sort of contract at all with An Actual Rhinoceros.* Thus, if still alive, he roams the Serengetti, enriching the coffers of WEA but with no legal recourse and, even sadder, no further means of sharing more of his music with the world.

Still, for those searching for authentic sounds from Africa, one can't find anything from there much more indigenous than this.

*This claim, I've since learned, is countered by another source which says that a contract was indeed presented to and signed by An Actual Rhinoceros but that, owing to his poor eyesight and irritability, the artist lacked the visual acuity and temperament to read the contract's 5-point typeface well enough so as to determine the extent to which the terms were favorable to him. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.