Toto's "Africa"

About

"Africa" is a 1982 soft rock song by the American band Toto which has been widely parodied and covered online as an iconic track from the time period. Additionally, the song has been referenced numerous times on South Park as a nostalgic favorite of the Member Berries characters.

Origin

On September 30th, 1982, the band Toto released the song "Africa" as a single for their fourth studio album Toto IV, which reached the number one spot on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart the following February.

Spread

On August 30th, 2010, Youtuber Mike Massé uploaded an acoustic cover of the song performed at the Pie Pizzeria in South Jordan, Utah (shown below, left). Within seven years, the video gathered upwards of 9.02 million views and 8,900 comments. On November 25th, 2013, the Angel City Chorale uploaded a cover of "Africa" to YouTube, where it received over 7.2 million views and 1,500 comments over the next four years (shown below, right).

On May 13th, 2015, the /r/TotoAfricaCovers^[1] subreddit was created for submissions of musical covers of the song. On August 18th, 2017, the Frog Leap Studios YouTuber channel released a metal cover of the song, garnering more than 5.15 million views and 9,800 comments over the next month (shown below, left). On September 15th, The Holderness Family uploaded a parody of "Africa" with lyrics complaining about learning algebra (shown below, right).

South Park

During the 20th season of South Park "Africa" was referenced in multiple episodes, where it was nostalgically covered by the Member Berries (shown below).

White House Event

In September 2017, a Facebook^[2] event page was created by George Washington University students Joanna Choi and Jaskeerat Mann to sing "Africa" on the White House North Lawn in Washington, D.C. (shown below). That month, the event gathered upwards of 20,000 "interested" RSVPs and 3,800 "going" RSVPs.

Pitbull's "Ocean to Ocean" Remix

On December 13th, 2018, the WaterTower Music YouTube channel uploaded the song "Ocean to Ocean" by Pitbull featuring Rhea on the soundtrack for the upcoming superhero film Aquaman, which features a background instrumental track and chorus based on "Africa" (shown below).

That day, Entertainment Weekly published a post about the song on Facebook, which received over 2,100 reactions and 590 comments, many of which mocked and derided the song (shown below, left). The following day, Redditor Ben_Mole submitted an image macro about the song to /r/dankmemes^[3] with the caption "Look how they massacred my boy" (shown below, right). Within seven hours, the post gained over 1,900 points (99% upvoted).

"Toto Forever"

In late December of 2018, Namibian-German artist Max Siedentopf installed an art installation in the Namib Desert which will in theory be playing "Africa" for eternity. The set-up features six speakers on individual plinths and is powered by solar energy.

NPR^[4] reported on the story on January 14th, 2019. Siedentopf has not disclosed the exact location of the installation, and provided a "map" which has the entire Namib desert circled and labeled "Approximate location."

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References