The Zulu Aid and Pleasure Club was a New Orleans social club that became an official Mardi Gras organization in 1910. Each year at Mardi Gras time, a prominent citizen is chosen to be “King of the Zulus”. Dressed in full regalia, he leads the parade in an elaborate float during the day, and presides over the gala ball in the evening. Louis Armstrong was King of the Zulus in the 1949 Mardi Gras parade. But his wife, Lil Hardin Armstrong, beat him to the punch by writing this tune in 1926. All hail the “King of the Zulus”.