Description

Pata Pata was released by Reprise in 1967, the year its title song became Miriam Makeba's biggest international hit. The cover is a close, warm portrait of Makeba in a dark headwrap, smiling, with the title set simply above her. No photographer or designer is credited in the sources available for this entry, so none is named here.

The song had a long history before the album. Makeba had sung "Pata Pata" in South Africa years earlier, and the 1967 recording, sung in Xhosa with a spoken English introduction, gave it a new life. The album's producers were Jerry Ragovoy, Jimmy Wisner, Luchi DeJesus and Sivuca. It reached the US charts and carried Makeba's voice to audiences that had never heard South African popular music.

By then Makeba was living in exile. South Africa had revoked her right to return after she spoke against apartheid, and she had testified against the system at the United Nations in 1963. Putting her face, rather than a graphic or a scene, at the centre of the sleeve made the record an introduction to a performer who was becoming one of the most visible opponents of apartheid in the world.

Credit

Cover artwork credit not independently confirmed