"Africa" is a song by American rock band Toto, the tenth and final track on their fourth studio album, Toto IV (1982). It was the second single from the album released in Europe (in the United Kingdom), in June 1982 on CBS Records, and the third in the United States, in October 1982 through Columbia Records. The song was written by band members David Paich and Jeff Porcaro, produced by the band, and mixed by engineer Greg Ladanyi.
Critics praised its composition and gentle production; the song continues to receive critical acclaim, and was ranked number 452 on Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
The song was accompanied by a music video, which premiered in 1983, and was directed by Steve Barron, who collaborated previously with the group for "Rosanna". The video features Toto in a library, as they perform and showcase various aspects of African culture. In June 2024, the music video reached the one billion view milestone on YouTube. While popular in the 1980s and 1990s, with the song being certified gold by the RIAA in 1991, "Africa" saw a resurgence in popularity via social media during the mid- to late 2010s. The original recording has since been certified Diamond and is one of the best-selling songs of all time.
Background The initial idea and lyrics for the song came from David Paich. Paich was playing around with a new keyboard, the CS-80, and found the brassy sound that became the opening riff. He completed the melody and lyrics for the chorus in about ten minutes, much to Paich's surprise. "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. Something just happened here! Paich refined the lyrics for six months before showing the song to the rest of the band.
In 2015, Paich explained that the song is about a man's love of a continent, Africa, rather than just 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. I tried to imagine how I'd feel about it if I was there and what I'd do." Jeff Porcaro elaborates further, explaining: "A white boy is trying to write a song on Africa, but since he's never been there, he can only tell what he's seen on TV or remembers in the past."
Some additional lyrics relate to a person flying in to meet a lonely missionary, as Paich described in 2018. As a child, Paich attended a Catholic school; several of his teachers had done missionary work in Africa. Their missionary work became the inspiration behind the line: "I bless the rains down in Africa." Paich, who at the time had never set foot in Africa, based the song's landscape descriptions from an article in National Geographic. At the time, Steve Lukather humorously remarked that he would run "naked down Hollywood Boulevard" if the song became a hit, due to his bemusement over the lyrics; Paich argued that it was a "fantasy song" in the vein of songs such as "Margaritaville".
During an appearance on the radio station KROQ-FM, Lukather and Steve Porcaro described the song as "dumb" and "an experiment" and some of the lyrics as "goofy" that were just placeholders, particularly the line about the Serengeti. Engineer Al Schmitt stated that "Africa" was the second song written for Toto IV and had been worked on extensively in the studio. Eventually, the band grew tired of the song and considered cutting it from the album entirely. Paich considered saving "Africa" for a solo record but decided against it.
The band did not expect "Africa" to be a hit, after the intended success of lead single "Rosanna" (which had peaked at number 2). However, after Sony found out that the song was gaining traction in New York dance clubs, they decided to release it as another single, further cementing the popularity of Toto IV in the process.
Composition Musically, the song took some time to assemble. Steve Porcaro, the band's synth player, introduced Paich to the Yamaha CS-80, a polyphonic analog synthesizer, and instructed him to write a song specifically with the keyboard in mind. Paich gravitated towards a brassy flute sound, which he found to be a unique alternative to the piano. Porcaro programmed the famous kalimba riff on a Yamaha GS-1 digital piano. The kalimba riff was recorded six times, each with different rhythms, and layered. Steve Lukather used a variety of guitars on the song, including a Takamine electric-acoustic guitar, a direct-input Fender Stratocaster, and a Gibson Les Paul for the distorted guitar parts. Additionally, Timothy B. Schmit performed a 12-string guitar part that doubled the keyboard lines. Steve Porcaro's brother, Jeff, played his parts live without a click track.
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. To recreate those sounds, he and his father Joe made percussion loops on bottle caps and marimba respectively.I was about 11 when the New York World's Fair took place, and I went to the African pavilion with my family. I saw the real thing ... It was the first time I witnessed somebody playing one beat and not straying from it, like a religious experience, where it gets loud, and everyone goes into a trance.
Lyrically, the song concerns a man torn between staying in Africa, a continent he is enamored of, and travelling to stay with a girl he is seeing. In the chorus, he "bless[es] the rains down in Africa"; several other references to other parts of the continent are made throughout, such as "wild dogs [crying] out in the night" and "Kilimanjaro [rising]... above the Serengeti" (which are, in reality, about apart). Stereogum writer Tom Breihan interpreted the song's Africa as an "extended metaphor" – a "stand-in [for] a thing that you long for even before you've said goodbye to it", and therefore potentially a partial allusion to Paich's own "rock stardom... that kept him apart from anything resembling a normal life". Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone interpreted it differently, as a song about "modern alienation", with the speaker "lost in time and space": he "doesn't know a thing about Africa, except it has to be better than the nightmare where he's trapped right now".
Music video The music video used the radio edit and was directed by Steve Barron. 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. On June 4, 2024, the music video broke the one billion view milestone on YouTube.
In the video, a researcher in a library (portrayed by Paich) tries to match a scrap of a picture of a shield to the book from which it was torn out. As he continues his search, a female librarian (portrayed by Jenny Douglas-McRae) working at a nearby desk takes occasional notice of him, while an African man in a generic tribal outfit carrying a shield that matches the picture begins to close in on the library from the surrounding jungle. When the researcher finds a book titled Africa, the man throws a spear at a bookshelf, toppling stacks of books. Africa falls open to the page from which the scrap was torn, but a lantern lands on it and sets it on fire, after which the librarian's eyeglasses are shown falling to the floor. The scenes are intercut with shots of a globe and the band performing atop a stack of giant hardcover books, in which Africa is the topmost.
The video has been criticized for its portrayal of African culture, with Sheffield calling it "mind-blowingly racist". Breihan described it as "almost shockingly racist", but nonetheless found that it "succeeds at its goal of making Toto seem visually compelling and translating the over-the-top drama of 'Africa' into something cinematic". Commenting on the backlash, Barron said that "there should have been [backlash]. But I don't think there was...that is probably kind of a white guy's, outsider view of the meaning of the song."
Reception and legacy The song was popular upon its release, hitting number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in February 1983, and also reaching the top 10 in many other worldwide record charts.
The song has continued to be a popular rock classic up to the 21st century. Cash Box called it an "image-filled package of pop exotica with its gently tropical synth and marimba". Billboard called it an "evocative number" that should return the group to the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 after the weaker single "Make Believe". Mark Cooper of Record Mirror labeled it as a "state-of-the-art song for FM radio fans." Classic Rock History critic Brian Kachejian rated it as Toto's 5th greatest song. In 2021, it was listed at No. 452 on Rolling Stones "500 Greatest Songs of All Time", being acclaimed as a "yacht-rock touchstone" and receiving praise for its "instantly calming synthesiser riff" and "soaring chorus".
Breihan positively reviewed the song as part of a column reviewing each Billboard Hot 100 #1. Ultimately giving it an 8/10 rating, he noted the song's "perfectly ridiculous act of hubris" in its "hackneyed, overwrought" lyrics comparing the 'Africa' depicted to Paich's supposed yearning for a "normal life", but acclaimed its complete lack of "self-consciousness" and confidence in its premise, lauding its "ultra-ridiculous synth-gloop" and "operatic" chorus. Critic Carl Wilson commented on the song's "perfect marriage of terrible and good", with its acute musicality – he described it as "well-played, well-sung, harmonically enticing, rhythmically enticing" – juxtaposed with a "completely incoherent text about Africa".
The song's inaccurate lyrical depiction of Africa, especially as seen from an otherwise-detached American perspective, has been commented on by various critics. Stereogum writer Vivek Maddala argued that "it's not hard to view [the song] as an expression of a glib neo-colonial mentality" and a "Rudyard Kipling 'White Man's Burden'-type narrative", especially with the lyrics being written in an "awkward, reductive way", but nevertheless noted that Paich wrote it "from a benign (if naïve) standpoint". Michael Hann of the Financial Times claimed that the lyrics are "filled with false nostalgia and riddled with errors", referencing the unrealistic line "as sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti", and even referred to the marimba and "cod-African solos" which might also be perceived as cultural appropriation. He nonetheless acknowledged that the lyrics still come off as "romantic and yearning", and the latter musical aspects form "part of its period charm". Sheffield argued that the inaccuracy displayed in the lyrics actually does not matter, as they nonetheless effectively portray the speaker's feelings of alienation and placelessness, being "homesick for nowhere" and "deep in his feelings".
Cultural impact Hann hypothesised that the song's musically "indelible" nature and status as a "song that exists to be sung" has given it a cultural staying power over the decades. Sheffield additionally compared it to another '80s rock hit with strong cultural endurance, Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'", and highlighted its position as a cultural touchstone and an "unofficial anthem". The song has been utilized in many internet memes, has appeared in television shows, such as Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Stranger Things, Family Guy, Chuck, The Cleveland Show, Top Gear and South Park, and was used by CBS during their 2013 coverage of the funeral of former South African President Nelson Mandela, albeit not without controversy. It was also included in the 2002 video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City as part of the fictional Emotion 98.3 radio station.