“It Began in Afrika” by The Chemical Brothers

"It Began in Afrika" started life without a proper name. The Chemical Brothers, the British electronic duo, pressed it up in June 2001 as "Electronic Battle Weapon 5", a white label for DJs, and once it had torn through the clubs they gave it a title and sent it out on 10 September 2001 as the lead single for Come With Us, their fourth album, four months ahead of the record.

Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons share the writing credit with Jim Ingram, the American musician whose track "Drumbeat" supplies its vocal samples, and Shovell sits in on percussion. Critics liked it and it reached number eight on the UK Singles Chart, yet it's missing from the standard editions of both Singles 93–03 and Brotherhood; only the original white label made it, onto the latter's bonus disc.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.