Having seen the iconic LA hitmakers Toto at the Hollywood Bowl last year, I immediately got curious about how many artists and bands had recorded covers over the years of their enigmatic classic “Africa,” their sole #1 hit. In an article on the Ultimate Classic Rock site titled “Bless The Rain With 42 Different Covers of Toto’s Africa,”
I got hip to quite a few, most prominently Weezer’s 2018 version which hit #1 on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart. The extensive list included arrangements in a multitude of genres – including R&B, metal, New Orleans-styled brass band, synth-pop, electronic, 8-bit video game, bluegrass and even a capella.
It's been a few years since that article, but we can safely assume this span didn’t include any amazing transformational instrumental versions. Leave it to the duo of Grammy winning slack key guitarist Jim “Kimo” West and producer, multi-instrumentalist and renowned “sound painter” David Vito Gregoli – collectively adored by musicians and fans alike as “Kimo Vito” – to totally reinvent “Africa” as an organic, trippy and meditational global seduction that keeps the familiar melody, killer hook and classic keyboard solo intact while journeying to unexpectedly hypnotic, spacious sonic realms.
The follow-up to the Kimo Vito re-imaginings of Sting’s “Fragile,” “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” and their debut album as a duo (Kimo Vito), the track features Kimo on lead ukulele and lap steel and baritone guitars, complemented by Vito performing on fretless bass, 12 string and lead during the end section and synth pads. Amping up the world music energy, mystique and thematic authenticity of the six-minute track are special guests Joss Jaffe on the African Ngoni, a harp like instrument, and the legendary MB Gordy, who adds African percussion and marimba.
“Having MB add the marimba solo note for note from Toto’s original was an acknowledgment of its iconic place in pop history,” says Vito. “Bringing in Joss on Ngoni seemed like another way to tie in the song to the continent.”
Also of note, all the profits from this single will go to support LA Fires relief.
For all the Africa-centric magic of Gordy’s intoxicating percussion grooves and Jaffe’s breathtaking strings, the Kimo Vito re-imagining of “Africa” is centered on Kimo’s swirl of intricate guitar tones, with one carrying the familiar infectious melody as another dances in harmony in and around it – to mesmerizing effect, over an increasingly dynamic groove. As with the Toto version, the verses build anticipation (here via the higher toned uke) towards the powerful chorus, rendered here as a seductive, colorful burst of snappy steel string excitement over intensifying rhythms and rich atmospheric caress. At about 3:15, Gordy’s marimba kicks in, taking the track to a higher, spiritually transcendent realm the listener’s soul won’t soon want to descend from. Vito’s uke touches on the last chorus add extra spice and emotional layering.
Kimo Vito’s freewheeling trip through another cherished pop classic (for an important cause to boot) is all the more impressive in that it began without any conceptual forethought. As Vito says, “I was noodling around and spontaneously started playing ‘Africa’ in an acoustic fingerstyle approach. Pretty soon an arrangement started taking shape and I sent it to Jim for his take. And the layering on had begun!”
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