While the song “Africa” was a huge hit for Toto, guitarist Steve Lukather reveals in a new interview that he has mixed feelings about the tune.
During an appearance on the Fail Better with David Duchovny podcast, Lukather shares that the tune has been both “a blessing and a curse” for the band.
“First off, it’s the least Toto song out of our whole bunch, but that’s the one everybody thinks that’s what we are,” he explained.
The song is heavy on keyboards and includes a kalimba, a South African instrument, which wasn’t typical of Toto’s other material. Lukather says the band felt it was a “catchy” tune that had “potential.”
“It was the last thing we cut, we thought it was a throwaway song,” he says. “We made the whole record without hearing the lyrics. And the last thing we did was put the lead vocal on. Everything else was done.”
Toto’s David Paich and Jeff Porcaro wrote the lyrics, with Lukather acknowledging the tune is “different lyrically” from anything else they’ve done.
“People try to think we’re serious about all this,” he says. He notes they took “poetic license” with the lyrics, like singing about seeing Mount Kilimanjaro from the Serengeti, which isn’t possible. He adds, “We started laughing, going, ‘What does this mean, man? We’re from North Hollywood.’”
“But it’s become the golden carrot, you know, so you can’t argue with it,” Lukather says, adding that because of it younger audiences have found their catalog, “and then they find out these guys are actually a rock band.”
“Africa” was the second single off Toto’s 1982 album, Toto IV. It was the band’s only #1 single. In 2018 it was covered by Weezer and became the band’s first Hot 100 hit since 2009.
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