Africa is one of the world’s most popular and well-known songs. Radio stations all over the world still play Africa. There are numerous cover versions of it, and people keep blessing the rains down in Africa at karaoke bars every night all over the world. The song has also found a new audience on streaming platforms, pushed by continual use in movies and TV series, where the song has seen an increase in streams of over 220% the last few years.
The song was originally part of the band’s massively successful album Toto IV and the hit they needed to keep their career moving.
After scoring initial success with 1978’s self-titled debut, Toto failed to reach similar heights with their next two albums. Their record label was getting restless, as guitarist Steve Lukather revealed in an interview with Billboard. “[Toto IV] was a do-or-die record for us," he said. "[The label] even came out and said, ‘If you guys don’t pull one off on this, it’s over. That’s the end of your contract.’”
With pressure mounting, Toto managed to make the biggest album of their career. Toto IV sold more than 12 million copies worldwide and won six Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year. Its lead single, “Rosanna,” was also a major hit, peaking at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. But “Africa” took things to a whole different level.
Toto IV Album Cover
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The Genesis of "Africa"
The band was under some pressure to deliver hits at the time. Their early sound mixed pop with synth and hard rock elements. On their next two releases, fan favorites Hydra (1979) and Turn Back (1981), they ventured deeper into hard rock and prog territory, creating some albums that are well worth checking out. While many fans think of this as the best era for Toto, they struggled to recreate their early success.
Consequently, Columbia Records put their foot down to stop what they saw as a move into less commercial music. They asked the band to get back on track by delivering a hit album with their next release, or risk being dropped from the label. Appeasing the faithful was not enough. The band went back to the formula that helped them succeed on their first album, which touched on many different genres of music while always making sure every song had a hook.
The initial idea and lyrics for Africa came from keyboardist and co-lead vocalist David Paich, who could be called the band’s principal (but not only) songwriter. Paich was playing around with the new keyboard and found the brassy sound that became the song’s opening riff, which he found to be a unique alternative to the piano.
Porcaro programmed six tracks of a Yamaha GS 1 digital piano to emulate the sound of a kalimba. With that, Paich completed the melody and the chorus lyrics in about ten minutes, much to his own surprise. In an interview with Mix, he said “I sang the chorus out as you hear it. It was like God channeling it. I thought, ‘I’m talented, but I’m not that talented."
In 2015, Paich explained that the song is about a man’s love of a continent, Africa, rather than being about a personal romance. He based the lyrics on a late night documentary with depictions of African plight and suffering. The viewing experience made a lasting impact on Paich: “It both moved and appalled me, and the pictures just wouldn’t leave my head.
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Paich had attended Catholic school in his youth and met several missionaries who had worked in Africa. They had told him about how they would bless everything down there: the people, bibles, harvests, and the rain. The missionaries also told of a lonely life. Paich wanted to write a romantic story about someone who flew to Africa to visit a lonely missionary. There was only one problem: Paich had never been to Africa. Everything he knew about it was what the missionaries had told him, old movies about Dr. Livingstone, and articles from National Geographic.
Additionally, some of the lyrics - specifically “I seek to cure what’s deep inside / Frightened of this thing that I’ve become” - seem to be a bit introspective. In a Songfacts interview from 2015, Paich admitted: “There’s a little metaphor involved here, because I was at the age where I was so immersed in my work, 24/7, that at times I felt like I was becoming just a victim of my work.
Bobby Kimball handled most of the lead vocals for Toto, but Paich sang the verses on Africa himself. His subdued delivery suited the verses better, and Kimball also had a hard time wrangling lines like “as sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti” which admittedly is a mouthful.
Jeff Porcaro (drums) is credited as co-writer of the song’s music alongside Paich.
The rest of the band were not immediately convinced that the song would be a hit. “I thought the melody was good,” guitarist Steve Lukather told NRK.no, “but when I heard the lyrics I just said, ‘I bless the rains down in Africa? What the hell are you singing about?
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If it had been up to Lukather, the song would never even have been on the album. “I told the rest of the band that if this song became a hit, I would run naked down Hollywood Boulevard” he laughs.
For all the misgivings there might have been about the song, the label had faith in it, and the band really did work hard on it. Engineer Al Schmitt stated that Africa was the second song written for Toto IV and had been worked on extensively in the studio. The work was actually so extensive that the band would grow tired of the song, to the point that they considered cutting it from the album entirely.
Jeff Porcaro played his drum parts live without a click track. “So when we were doing Africa,” he recalled for Mix, “I set up a bass drum, snare drum and a hi-hat, and Lenny Castro set up right in front of me with a conga. We looked at each other and just started playing the basic groove. […] We played for five minutes on tape, no click, no nothing. We just played. And I was singing the bass line for Africa in my mind, so we had a relative tempo. Lenny and I went into the booth and listened back to the five minutes of that same boring pattern. We picked out the best two bars that we thought were grooving, and we marked those two bars on tape. […] Maybe it would have taken two minutes to program that in the Linn, and it took about half an hour to do this.
Jeff Porcaro also acknowledged that he was influenced by the sounds created by fellow Los Angeles session musicians Milt Holland and Emil Richards. He also described the significance of the African pavilion drummers at the 1964 New York World’s Fair and a National Geographic Special.
The Music Video
Dax and Kristen do Africa (music video)
As soon as Africa had been earmarked as a single, plans were made to shoot a music video for it. In the video, a researcher in a library (portrayed by David Paich) tries to match a scrap of a picture of a shield to the book from which it was torn out. There is a cute librarian, taxidermy, a book called “Africa,” a burning spear, and a globe.
The music video used the radio edit of the song. It was directed by Steve Barron who also did their Rosanna video as well as many other early MTV favorites. It features Mike Porcaro on bass, replacing David Hungate, who had already left the band before the video was made. Lenny Castro is also featured in the video on percussion.
Toto - Africa Official Music Video
Lasting Impact and Accolades
During an appearance on the radio station KROQ-FM in 2018, Lukather and Steve Porcaro still had mixed feelings about the song. While they praised the song’s melody, its colors, the loops on it, and the overall satisfaction with the hard work that went into giving the song its shape, the lyrics were still not above ridicule. They described some of the lyrics as “dumb,” “just something to put there”.
Some of the misgivings are possible to understand. It is probably Toto’s most famous song, but Lukather in particular would like you to know that there is much more to the band. He told NRK.no: “People have said, ‘I hate that Africa-band. The lyrics make no sense.’ And they are right about that. But they often haven’t listened to our other songs.
At the same time, the song has clearly been a blessing for the band, contributing not only to their fortunes but also making Toto one of the most well-known bands in the world in the process.
The single was a massive worldwide hit upon its release (25 June 1982 (UK) and October 1982 (US)). It got all the way to the top of the Billboard charts and was a massive hit everywhere. Ever since Africa was released, it has been played on every single tour the band has done and is usually one of the show highlights. Everybody knows it, as it continues to be played on radio around the world.
Listing all of the song’s accolades beyond its initial chart success would take some time. To name but a few, in 2012 Africa was listed #32 by music magazine NME on its list of 50 Most Explosive Choruses. Two years later, the song was one of the first to reach 1 billion plays on the streaming site Spotify. In 2021, it was listed at No. 452 on Rolling Stone’s Top 500 Best Songs of All Time.
Toto IV received six Grammy Awards in 1983 including Album of the Year, Producer of the Year for the band, and Record of the Year for "Rosanna". It reached number four on the Billboard 200 album charts in the United States, shortly after its release. It also reached the top ten in other countries, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Italy, Norway, the United Kingdom, and Japan.
The recording was spread over many months during 1981 and 1982. By indicating to the label that they would do their utmost to deliver what they wanted, the band was allowed a much larger than average recording budget. The multiple 24-track recorders were linked via a computerized SMPTE timecode system. One track of each machine contained the timecode synchronization signal, while 22 of the remaining 23 tracks of each reel were available for audio track recordings.
Philip Garris's original emblem from the Toto album was updated to show four rings since this was their fourth album. The newer looking, well-polished ring around the hilt of the sword represented their latest work.
| Title | Writer(s) | Lead vocals | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| Afraid of Love | Lukather, Paich, Jeff Porcaro | Lukather | 3:52 |
| Lovers in the Night | Paich | Paich | 4:27 |
| We Made It | Paich, J. Porcaro | Kimball | 3:56 |
| Waiting for Your Love | Kimball, Paich | Kimball | 4:13 |
| Africa | Paich, J. Porcaro | Paich | 4:55 |
The "Africa" Phenomenon Continues
Ever since the release of Toto's "Africa" in 1982, the song has gone on to a life of its own in cover versions, hip-hop samples and viral videos.
On the popular Norwegian hit station NRK P3, they have a rule about not playing music that is older than 10-15 years. The song has never really gone away.
The campaign went viral, and the American poprock-band started getting requests from fans all over the world. There was a jokey feel to it all, and Weezer decided to be a bit jokey in return. They covered the correct band, even the correct album, but the wrong song! Half a year later the pressure had become too much. The band buckled, and Mary got her wish as the original request was fulfilled.
Toto was in on the joke, surprising everyone by returning the favor when they covered the Weezer track Hash Pipe. Alongside Weezer, the list of bands that have covered Africa seems endless. Many of these covers have millions of streams.
The song has nearly become inescapable, to the point that even if you should find yourself in one of the largest deserts in the world, away from modern life and society in general, you might still be able to hear the song play.
The German-Namibian artist Max Siedentopf has built a sound installation in an undisclosed location in the middle of the Namib desert in January 2019 which plays Africa on a constant loop.
The “Africa” installation in the Namib desert
Covers and Samples
Here is a small sampling of the musicians who have covered or sampled "Africa":
- Nas, "New World" (1999)
- Howie Day (2000)
- Ja Rule, “Reign” (2002)
- Xzibit, "Heart of Man" (2002)
- JoJo, “Anything” (2006)
- 'Community' (2010)
- Quietdrive (2011)
- Relient K (2011)
- Jason DeRulo, “Fight for You” (2011)
- 'Family Guy' (2012)
- Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake (2013)
- Foster Farms (2013)
- St. Lucia (2016)
- 'South Park' (2016)
- 'Stranger Things' (2016)
- Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell (2016)
- Bacall + Malo ft. Prince Osito (2016)
- Affiance (2016)
- Brad Davis (2017)
- Leo Moracchioli feat. Rabea & Hannah (2017)
- The Floppotron (2018)
- Volvo Door Open Alert (2018)
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