If you have been on the internet in the past year, you probably noticed a resurgence of the 80s soft rock song “Africa” by Toto. You may have heard this timeless tune in the hit tv series Stranger Things, or picked up on parodied versions of it on Community (featuring Betty White) and The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon (featuring Justin Timberlake), and more recently you perhaps saw Weezer’s cover of the tune. Or, if you looked further into the deep, dark reaches of the interweb, you might have noticed the Africa Twitter bot, Nick Desideri’s Unifying Theory of Bops, and the “.africa” website inspired by this very song. But what is it about four white men singing a song glorifying a continent they’ve never been to that has spurred on this sudden obsession with “Africa”?
Let me start by saying that “Africa” isn’t quite as nonsensical as it first appears. Songwriter David Paich was inspired by stories told to him in Catholic school about religious leaders who did missionary work in Africa, and after seeing UNICEF commercials on TV, showing children and families living in poverty, Paich explained that the song practically wrote itself. And although guitarist Steve ‘Luke’ Lukather wasn’t quite sold on the lyrics, promising “If this is a hit, I’ll run naked down Hollywood Boulevard,” he did admit that the song had a brilliant tune.
“Africa” incorporates a wide variety of different voices from the rhythm section (and of course the flute/mallet jam in the middle) to create a tribal-esque backbeat, and seamlessly ties in key modulations between the verses and chorus. The opening riff was written on Paich’s new brassy-sounding keyboard, a Yamaha CS-80, with kalimba sounds from the Yamaha GS-1 added later on closer to the chorus. Although the track begins by following the traditional rock formula, complete with a four by four progression and snares on every second and fourth beat, the listener is thrown for a spin when the maracas enter at the point in which the hi hat would typically come in. A conga soon joins and follows the kick- and snare-drum, sometimes being played exactly in time with these percussion instruments, and sometimes a 16th beat before as to give the section a unique groove. Because this drum beat was used as a loop before the invention of MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface), Toto had to cut and stitch magnetic tapes together. This extra effort was indubitably well worth it though, as it made the iconic rhythm of their song simultaneously simplistic and complex, toying with the expectations of the listener.
In spite of the complexities in the music theory of “Africa,” Paich wrote almost the entire song within the first few hours in front of the keyboard. The song opens in the key of C# minor, but switches into B major when the verse enters, only returning to the original key to borrow a quote from the opening at the end of each phrase. The vocals of the chorus are created by overlaying two-toned voices to combine harmonies, and throughout the rest of the song, the same blending of the familiar and unpredictable that was used with the percussion continues in the harmonies.
With all of that being said, “Africa” may still be a bit of a gag song. Lukather remarks that upon hearing the song’s lyrics, he asked “Dave, man, Africa? We’re from north Hollywood. What the f*** are you writing about? ‘I bless the rains down in Africa?’ Are you Jesus, Dave?” But maybe the contradiction between the silly lyrics, and the novel, nostalgia-inducing sound of the song, created by the profoundly musical technicalities of the rhythm section and harmonic characteristics, is exactly what has propelled “Africa” to stardom.
The Power of Music 