Juliana Malta / Unsplash
Toto’s ‘Africa’ has been punching above its weight for years in terms of cultural impact. Ever since the song hit airwaves in the early 1980s it’s been receiving nonstop airplay worldwide somewhere at sometime.
‘Africa’ by Toto saw a cultural revival over the past year after a diehard fan made it their mission to get Weezer to cover the song, which they eventually did. Then Weezer released a music video for the track starring Weird Al. Toto also came back and covered a Weezer song in response.
Now, after decades, Toto’s ‘Africa‘ is home forever. An artist has set up an installation in the 1,200-mile Namibian Desert that will blast Toto’s ‘Africa’ on repeat from now until the end of time.
The installation has been set up in an undisclosed location but it’s being powered off of solar batteries supporting six speakers attached to an MP3 player set up to play ‘Africa’ from now until the end of days. Due to the extremely arid climate of the Namibian Desert and crazy sunny days, this is the perfect location to set up the installation. There’s enough sunlight to keep this going forever and the lack of rain won’t destroy the installation.
Artist Max Siedentopf is the man behind this amazing installation and even though the location of the ‘Toto Forever’ installation is a secret we can see the setup on his Instagram.
Will artist Max Siedentopf ever reveal the location of his ‘Toto Forever’ installation? It doesn’t sound like he will, at least that’s how I interpreted his comments to CNN:
When asked whether his work was making fun of the tendency of non-Africans to exoticize the continent, Siedentopf said there was a lot to say about Western stereotypes, but “putting (that) aside, the installation is supposed to look more at the lighter side of things and everyone should be able to enjoy it.”
He said he won’t reveal exact the location of the work, adding that it is “like a treasure that only the most loyal of Toto fans can find.” (via)
Over/Under on how long it’ll take before some American or European tourists are taken hostage in the desert by desert people from Star Wars while trying to find this ‘Toto Forever’installation? I think this will happen within the next five years. I just need someone to take bets on this. Vegas, where you at?