"Mambo No. 5" | |
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Song by Pérez Prado | |
Released | 1950 |
Genre | Mambo, jive dance |
Length | 2:10 |
Writer(s) | Dámaso Pérez Prado |
"Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit of...)" | ||||
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Single by Lou Bega | ||||
from the album A Little Bit of Mambo | ||||
Released | April 19, 1999 | |||
Format | CD, maxi and 7" 45 rpm single | |||
Genre | Latin pop, Dance | |||
Length | 5:14 (extended version) 3:39 (radio edit) |
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Label | RCA | |||
Writer(s) | Lou Bega, Dámaso Pérez Prado, Zippy Davids | |||
Producer(s) | Goar B, Frank Lio, Donald Fact, Peter Meisel | |||
Lou Bega singles chronology | ||||
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"Mambo No. 5" is a mambo and jive dance song originally recorded and composed by Cuban Dámaso Pérez Prado in 1949.
The song's popularity was renewed by German artist Lou Bega's sampling and vocal version of the original, released under the same name on Bega's 1999 debut album A Little Bit of Mambo.
Lou Bega's cover was a hit in the United Kingdom, and Australia, where it reached number-one in 1999. It stayed at number-one in Australia for eight weeks, ultimately becoming the best-selling single of 1999. It also topped almost every chart in continental Europe, including Bega's home country, Germany, and set a record by staying at number-one in France for 20 weeks (longer than any stay at the top spot ever on the US or UK charts). The song reached number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US on November 2, 1999, giving Bega his only Top 40 hit in the US.
With its worldwide success, the song became the subject of a seven-year copyright trial between Prado's estate, Peermusic, and Lou Bega's producers. Bega had only used riffs (which by German law cannot be registered for copyright) from Prado's original and written the entire lyrics, so Bega's producers went to court in order to gain access to all the song's proceedings from Peermusic representing Prado's estate. However, after seven years the Federal Court of Justice of Germany ruled in favor of Peermusic and Prado's estate in 2008, based upon the fact that Bega's producers had sought a royalty agreement with Peermusic prior to releasing the song. Because of Bega's significant contributions to his version, the court's final ruling declared it a new song co-written by Prado and Bega.
The music video, directed by Jorn Heitmann, features Lou Bega singing and dancing with flappers, possibly a homage to the music of the 1920s and 1930s. The video includes clips of old-style movies and newsreels showing trumpets, big bands and the like. The Disney version of the music video features Lou Bega performing against a white background with a live band, and the women's names are replaced with names of classic Disney characters. Footage of Mickey Mouse Works cartoons and clips of Lou Bega performing against a checkered background is intercut throughout the video.