“Africa” by Toto, Monday, August 21, 2023

My mom didn't let me play video games unless they were educational. So I didn't grow up on Mario or Donkey Kong at home. Instead, I got to play educational games like The Oregon Trail or Math Blaster. My favorite game, though, was Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? Despite the implausible premise of being a detective, tracking down a criminal who stole intangible cultural heritage, I loved flying around the world to fifty countries--some of which no longer exist--listening to strange music, and discovering the cultures that made the world so interesting. 

IT'S GONNA TAKE A LOT TO DRAG ME AWAY FROM YOU. TOTO is often classified as a Yacht Rock band today, a somewhat pejorative term for the smooth-sounding light rock of the late '70s and early '80s. The term "Yacht Rock" actually comes from a YouTube mockumentary from the early age of YouTube. Music critic Chris Molanphey goes to great pains to define the imaginary genre in his episode of The Bridge called "Yacht or Not." Molanphey argues that Yacht Rock is, in its purest form, West Coast studio musicians who performed highly refined pop music. Artists like Christopher Crosse and bands like Steely Dan and the Michael McDonald incarnation of The Doobie Brothers along with Los Angeles' TOTO are some of the prime examples of Yacht Rock, according to Molanphey's definition. Interestingly, one of the exceptions that Molanphey sites not as Yacht Rock is Daryl Hall & John Oates only because they were east coasters. Yacht Rock isn't cool, but it's made a resurgence on Spotify, particularly every summer. Furthermore, while not West Coasters, bands like The 1975 and Jonas Brothers certainly take influence from Yacht Rock. And while Hall & Oates and Michael MacDonald may not receive critical praise for their pop music, critics tend to love the musicality of Steely Dan and TOTO. 

I BLESS THE RAINS DOWN IN AFRICA. Similar to my early interest in the world due to Where In the World Is Carmen Sandiego?, TOTO's David Paich grew up reading National Geographic and watching UNICEF commercials, romanticizing the continent of Africa. The final track on Toto's fourth album, "Africa," is a generalization of a large continent. None of the members of the pop-rock group had been to Africa. Drummer Jeff Porcaro said of the song in an interview, "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." Having worked with coworkers from South Africa, I'm always fascinated to see how they view Americans. "So many of you think that Africa's a country. A big one, but not as big as the U.S." one coworker told me. Yet somehow, when Americans close their eyes we tend to think of everything: from the pyramids to the apartheid, from the Sahara to the Congo. And yet, while this land mass is more than three times the U.S., we shrink the world to make its problems seem small compared to my struggle to pay the mortgage. 

Read “Africa” by Toto on Genius.