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Miriam Makeba — Pata Pata

Name: Pata Pata
Description: Miriam Makeba recorded the original Pata Pata in Johannesburg in 1956 before she was exiled from South Africa. She re-recorded it in New York in 1967 for Reprise Records, where Harry Belafonte mentored her, and it reached the US Top 20 — the first South African song to do so. The apartheid government banned her music. She lived in exile for thirty-one years.

Pata Pata · 1967

Label: Strut · Genre: World / Afro-Jazz · From: Johannesburg, Southern Africa

Miriam Makeba recorded the original Pata Pata in Johannesburg in 1956 before she was exiled from South Africa. She re-recorded it in New York in 1967 for Reprise Records, where Harry Belafonte mentored her, and it reached the US Top 20 — the first South African song to do so. The apartheid government banned her music. She lived in exile for thirty-one years.

Did you know: Makeba testified before the United Nations against apartheid in 1963, making her the first private citizen to address the UN on that subject. South Africa revoked her citizenship in response. She was also briefly married to Stokely Carmichael, which ended her US career — concert bookings disappeared overnight.

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