Africa (Toto song)

"Africa"
Single by Toto
from the album Toto IV
B-side	"Good For You" "We Made It" (Europe) "Africa" (live) (1990 re-release)
Released	October 1982
Format	7", CD
Recorded	1981 - 1982
Genre	Soft rock, world music
Length	4:58
Label	Columbia
Writer(s)	David Paich, Jeff Porcaro
Producer	Toto
Toto singles chronology
"Make Believe" (1982) "Africa" (1982) "I Won't Hold You Back" (1982) Audio sample file info · help

"Africa" is a song by rock band Toto, and one of the band's most recognizable songs. It was included on their 1982 album Toto IV, and reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in February 1983 and number three on the UK Singles Chart the same month. The song was written by the band's keyboardist/vocalist David Paich and drummer Jeff Porcaro.

Background

The initial idea for the song came from David Paich. Jeff Porcaro explains the idea behind the song: "... 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."

David Paich said: "At the beginning of the '80s I watched a late night documentary on TV about all the terrible death and suffering of the people in Africa. It both moved and appalled me and the pictures just wouldn't leave my head. I tried to imagine how I'd feel about if I was there and what I'd do."

Musically the song took quite some time to assemble, as Paich and Porcaro explain:

"On 'Africa' you hear a combination of marimba with GS 1. The kalimba is all done with the GS 1; it's six tracks of GS 1 playing different rhythms. I wrote the song on CS-80, so that plays the main part of the entire tune."

Jeff Porcaro reminisces about how the song's percussion tracks took shape:

"I was about 11 when the New York's World Fair took place, and I went to the African pavilion with my family. I saw the real thing; I don't know what tribe, but there were these drummers playing, and my mind was blown... It was the first time I witnessed someone playing one beat and not straying from it, like a religious experience, where it gets loud, and everyone goes into a trance. I have always dug those kind of orchestras, whether it be a band or all drummers... and I said, 'Gee, someday there's going to be a little drum orchestra where everybody plays one thing, and you don't stray from it. You do it until you drop. You're banished from that land if you move from that one part.'

"So when we were doing 'Africa', 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.... The backbeat is on 3, so it's a half-time feel, and it's 16th notes on the hi-hat. Lenny started playing a conga pattern. 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. We made another mark four bars before those two bars. Lenny and I went back out; I had a cowbell, Lenny had a shaker. They gave us two new tracks, and they gave us the cue when they saw the first mark go by. Lenny and I started playing to get into the groove, so by the time the that fifth bar came – which was the first bar of the two bars we marked as the cool bars we liked – we were locked, and we overdubbed shaker and cowbell.

"So there was bass drum, snare drum, hi-hat, two congas, a cowbell, and a shaker. We went back in, cut the tape, and made a one-bar tape loop... Maybe it would have taken two minutes to program that in the Linn, and it took about half an hour to do this. But a Linn machine doesn't feel like that! So we had an analog groove. We took that tape, transferred it onto another 24-track for six minutes, and David Paich and I went out in the studio. The song started, and I was sitting there with a complete drumset, and Paich was playing. When he got to the fill before the chorus, I started playing the chorus, and when the verse or the intro came back, I stopped playing. Then we had piano and drums on tape. You have to realize that there are some odd bars in 'Africa', so when you have a one-bar loop going, all of a sudden, sometimes Lenny's figure would turn around. So Lenny went in and played the song again, but this time he changed his pattern a little for the turnarounds, for the fills, for the bridge, for the solo. We kept the original part and the new one. Then we had to do bongos, jingle sticks, and big shakers doing quarter notes, maybe stacking two tracks of sleigh bells, two tracks of big jingle sticks, and two tracks of tambourine all down to one track. I was trying to get the sounds I would hear Milt Holland or Emil Richards have, or the sounds I would hear in a 'National Geographic' special, or the ones I heard at the New York World's Fair."

"Africa" was played on all of Toto's tours from its release until the band's breakup in 2008. It was sung by David Paich at the 2009 Millennium Development Goals Awards Ceremony.

Music video

The music video was directed by Steve Barron. The story is of a researcher in a library (portrayed by band member David Paich), looking for clues to a book called Africa. Many scenes include the band performing atop a stack of hardcover books. This video also features Mike Porcaro on bass, replacing the original bassist David Hungate who had already left the band before the video was made.

Covers

• The song has been covered in 1982 by Key of Dreams, Italo Disco style.
• The Shadows did an instrumental of the song in 1983.
• Singer-songwriters Howie Day and Virginia Coalition and Umphrey's McGee perform versions of "Africa" in their live shows, and the song has been a popular cover for a cappella groups.
• SubAudible Hum covered this song for Triple J's Like a Version.
• Belgian-born Canadian singer Lara Fabian used this song on her Nue Tour in 2001 as an interlude performance to her Nue album track "Rio" with one of her backup singers singing lead on the verses.
• German band Pyogenesis covered their song in their full length album, Mono, ... or will it ever be.
• Phonte Coleman, member of the rap group Little Brother covered the song for his 1980's cover album, Zo and Tigallo Love the 80's.
• Chris de Burgh covered it on his 2008 covers album Footsteps.
• Lowry recorded a cover of the song for Engine Room Recordings' compilation album Guilt by Association Vol. 2, which was released in November 2008.
• Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra recorded a cover the song on their 2009 release, The Dreaming EP.
• Olivia Lufkin did a slow cover of the song on her Sea Me single.
• Straight No Chaser did an a capella cover of the song in the late 1990s for a bonus track on their album, "Holiday Spirits." They rerecorded the song as an Amazon.com exclusive track for their 2010 album, "With A Twist." (The song was also included in the group's most famous work, the "Twelve Days of Christmas" medley, which ends with "Africa" set to Christmas-themed lyrics.)
• Alternative Christian rock band Relient K has performed the song at some of their live shows in 2010, and included it on their 2011 cover album, K Is for Karaoke.
• Acoustic guitar virtuoso Andy McKee also did a solo arrangement of Africa for guitar, encompassing many percussive and alternative techniques that are the hallmarks of his playing.
• Philip Lawson of The King's Singers has done an arrangement of the song, now performed by many high-school choirs. It is published by Hal Leonard Corporation.
• The Slovenian a capella group, Perpetuum Jazzile did a version of this song from their album of the same name, Africa. They credit their version to Kearsney College Choir, who did a version as well.
• Laura Broad, founding member of Channel 5's Don't Stop Believing Supergroup, created an acoustic cover of Africa in January 2012. The recording was analogue.
• Quietdrive, of Minneapolis, Minnesota, recorded a cover after fans voted for it during the band's, "Your Record/Our Spin" project.

Samplings and adaptations

• Italian project Max Who sampled the song for their single "Ciao Africa" in 1992.
• Rapper Nas sampled the song for his single "New World" in 1999 from his album Nastradamus.
• Rapper Xzibit sampled the song in the song "Heart of Man" in 2002 from his album Man vs. Machine.
• Pop singer JoJo (singer) uses the chorus in her song "Anything" on her 2006 album The High Road.
• Lebanese Canadian singer Karl Wolf used the song for his single "Africa". His release featuring Culture and with new lyrics except for the refrain was a big success in Canada, Japan and the Middle East. The track is included in his 2008 album Bite The Bullet.
• Pop singer Jason Derülo has used an interpolation of the chorus in his single, "Fight for You" from his 2011 album Future History. Earlier in 2011, Stevie Hoang (a co-writer of the song) and Iyaz had recorded a version of "Fight for You" also with the Toto "Africa" refrain, with slightly different lyrics from the Derülo release in some of the lines. The recording was leaked before it had been finalized and may have been shelved because of the leak and the popularity of the consequent Jason Derülo release.
• Pittsburgh Rapper Wiz Khalifa sampled the song for his single Huey Newton.
• Rapper Ja Rule from New York sampled the song for his single "Murder Reigns" in 2002.
• The second season of TV series Chuck showed fictional duo Jeffster! covering the track in the episode "Chuck Versus the Best Friend".

Personnel

• Steve Lukather - backing vocals, guitar
• Bobby Kimball - backing vocal
• David Hungate - bass
• Jeff Porcaro - drums, percussion
• Steve Porcaro - synthesizer
• David Paich - lead and backing vocals, piano, synthesizer

Guest Musicians

• Jim Horn - recorders
• Lenny Castro - congas, percussion
• Joe Porcaro - marimbas, percussion
• Timothy B. Schmitt - backing vocal

Charts

Chart (1982-3)	Peak position
Australian Kent Music Report	5
Austrian Top 40	7
Belgian Singles Chart	8
Canadian RPM Adult Contemporary Tracks	8
Canadian RPM Top Singles	1
Dutch Singles Chart	2
Europarade	17
Finnish Singles Chart	18
French Singles Chart	27
German Singles Chart	14
Irish Singles Chart	2
Italian Singles Chart	22
New Zealand Singles Chart	8
Polish Singles Chart	19
South African Singles Chart	18
Spanish Radio Chart	18
Swiss Singles Chart	6
U.K. Singles Chart	3
U.S. Billboard Hot 100	1
U.S. Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks	3

Year-End Chart

Chart (1982)	Peak position
Dutch Top 40	18
Belgian VRT Top 30	85
German Media Control Charts	88

Chart (1983)	Peak position
Canadian RPM Top Singles	16
U.S. Billboard Hot 100	24
Australian Kent Music Report	25
U.K. Singles Charts	38
Italian Singles Chart	75

See also

• Africa (Karl Wolf song)
• Fight for You by Jason Derülo
• List of RPM number-one singles of 1983
• List of Hot 100 number-one singles of 1983 (U.S.)

External links

• Billboard Chart Listing - Allmusic.com
• Mix Magazine's "Classic Tracks" article