Cultural Impact

Hann hypothesises that the song’s musically “indelible” nature, cheesiness, and status as a “song that exists to be sung”, has given it a cultural staying power over the decades. Sheffield additionally compares it to another 80s rock hit with strong cultural endurance, Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin'”, and highlights its position as a cultural touchstone and an “unofficial anthem”. The song has been utilized in many internet memes, has appeared in television shows, such as Late Night With Jimmy Fallon, Stranger Things, Family Guy, Chuck, The Cleveland Show and South Park, and was used by CBS during their 2013 coverage of the funeral of former South African President Nelson Mandela, albeit not without controversy. It was also included in the 2002 video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City as part of the fictional Emotion 98.3 radio station.

In 2012, “Africa” was listed by music magazine NME in 32nd place on its list of “50 Most Explosive Choruses. In January 2019, a sound installation was set up in an undisclosed location in the Namib Desert to play the song on a constant loop. The installation is powered by solar batteries, allowing the song to be played indefinitely.[39] Two years later, the song reached 1 billion plays on the streaming site Spotify.

In 2022, the song was revealed as the third most streamed song of the 1970s, 80s and 90s in the UK (behind Oasis’s “Wonderwall” and Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody”).