The Story of the 'Pata- Pata'.

Sung almost entirely in the South African language isiXhosa, ‘Pata Pata’ is instantly infectious. It also transports listeners into the setting of the country’s famous township shebeens, hotbeds for creativity and resistance at the height of apartheid.

As the Late Miariam Makeba sings:
Pata Pata is the name of the dance we do down Johannesburg way

And everybody starts to move as soon as Pata Pata starts to play.

The direct English translation of Pata Pata is ‘touch touch’, and it started out as a style of dance that was particularly popular in Johannesburg townships in the mid-1950s. The dance was considered quite risqué, especially for the time,.

​

In many ways, the dance, and Johannesburg’s shebeens, offered participants an opportunity to release the pressure that was imposed on black South Africans by the apartheid government at the time.

Every Friday and Saturday Night it’s Pata Pata time!