2018 was the year of Toto’s “Africa” for some reason, with Weezer caving to fan pressure and releasing a (secretly very boring) cover of it in May followed by Pitbull proving that a boring cover is still better than a fucking nightmare cover with his bizarre contribution to the Aquaman soundtrack, but a Namibian artist named Max Siedentopf is here to guarantee that the year of “Africa” never truly ends. As reported by the BBC, Siedentopf has built an art installation in the middle of the African desert with solar-powered speakers attached to an mp3 player that will run “Africa” on a continuous loop until the sun burns up or the harsh environment of the Namibian desert knocks it over.
The components of the installation were chosen to be as durable as possible, but it really is just a series of speakers sitting on top of some pedestals. It shouldn’t be too hard to wreck this thing. At the very least, though, Siedentopf will hopefully keep it safe from vandals for a while by keeping its exact location a secret. The only way to find it, aside from scouring the entire desert, is to just pick a spot in Namibia and listen really hard until you hear the sweet sounds of Toto drifting through the air. The downside of that tactic is that you’ll be totally thrown off if anyone ever plays the song outside of Siedentopf’s installation, which is almost certainly going to happen now that “Africa” has achieved eternal meme status.
Now someone just needs to go out into the ocean and build a similar shrine to Pitbull’s Aquaman song. It’s only fitting that mankind’s greatest achievement and most shameful mistake are preserved in the same way for all of eternity, if only so future life forms know how to properly judge us.