http://www.mariowiki.com/File:KingK.RoolMSS.png
Looks rather tribal, does it not? This game could have very well been in production at the same time as Super Mario Sluggers.
I'm calling it. K. Rool convinced the tikis to raid DK's banana hoard and will turn out to be the puppet master. Remember DKC3? Until the end, the main villain was supposed to be a robot named KAOS. I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happened here.
If not, oh well. At least DK isn't a terrorist this time (Jungle Beat).