Virtually everything about Weezer covering Toto’s “Africa” was strange, from the social media campaign that sparked the cover in the first place to the music video starring Weird Al Yankovic to, apparently, the subsequent interactions between Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo and Toto guitarist Steve Lukather. The fact that Weezer’s version of “Africa” just so happens to be a really good rendition of the 1982 track is the entire debacle’s saving grace.
Videos by American Songwriter
Lukather has since said it’s all “peace and love” between the two musicians, but the entire cultural traffic jam of 2018 still feels…cringey.
Steve Lukather Reacts To Weezer Cover Of Toto’s “Africa”
For historical context, we think it’s important to emphasize that Weezer covering Toto’s 1982 hit track “Africa” came about in a way that is so quintessentially late-aughts I can practically feel the blue light emanating from a screen just thinking about it: a parody Twitter account. @weezerafrica was an account whose sole purpose was to mention Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo and tell him to cover “Africa.” The joke picked up steam, as absurd jokes are wont to do on the internet, until it became a campaign the 1990s pop-rock icons could no longer ignore. They gave in. It was a hit.
Weezer tried to satiate the public demand for a Toto cover with a rendition of “Rosanna,” but the internet held firm for “Africa.” These covers began sparking conversations about how much Cuomo must admire and appreciate the work of the California rock band. Guitarist Steve Lukather wasn’t so sure. “I don’t know about him loving the song, man,” Lukather said in a 2025 interview with 99.5 KLOS host Matt Pinfield. “I think he did it to take the p*** out of it, and it blew up in his face. Now, he’s got to play it every night.”
“I tried to reach out to the guy and be friendly,” Lukather continued. “It just got weird. I don’t want to get into it, but peace and love. [It] was good for them, good for us, God bless.” Lukather’s curt reaction to his previous encounters with Cuomo caused ears to perk up, wondering what could have been so “weird” about it. However, it becomes easier to guess when one considers what Cuomo has said about Weezer’s “Africa” cover in the past.
Rivers Cuomo Struggled With The Success Of Band’s 1980s Cover
The only thing that could have made a situation like Weezer covering Toto’s “Africa” because of social media peer pressure and then being awkwardly distant to the original band members is if, when Weezer released a music video of them covering said song, they used Weird Al Yankovic dressed as Rivers Cuomo instead of the actual frontman. Given Cuomo’s comments in a 2019 interview with Entertainment Weekly, I wonder if Cuomo was trying to make a point about how the internet effectively reduced a massively influential group like Weezer into a cover band taking requests. A parody of their former selves performed by one of the greatest parody artists of all time.
“One thing I wasn’t prepared for was the pain of success,” Cuomo told EW. “And by that, I mean the pain of having a huge success with a song I didn’t write. That really has thrown me. It’s taken me a while to regain my faith.”
So, maybe those “weird” feelings Lukather picked up on when he reached out to Cuomo had more to do with the Weezer frontman than the Toto guitarist after all.
Photo by Jun Sato/WireImage
Leave a Reply
Only members can comment. Become a member. Already a member? Log in.