Tom Rowlands of the duo initially have mixed feelings about the track, saying it had "quite a lot of percussion, big, sweeping sort of stuff.

[4] In addition to the full length and radio edit versions of the track, the single release also contained the B-side "Hot Rhythm Acid 1".

"[7] In a more mixed-to-positive review, after noting the album is "steeped in retro-synth glory", Sal Cinquemani of Select Magazine said "It Began in Afrika" is "ripe with tribal beats and jungle-cat snarls (is that He-Man's Battlecat?

"[8] Reviewing Come with Us for Uncut, Simon Reynolds said that while it felt "nondescript" as a single, it now "sounds fabulous" in the "propulsive context" of the album, placed between the title track and "Galaxy Bounce".

"Purporting to be the dancefloor equivalent of a radical plate-tectonic shift," he added, "it's actually a crude, sub-Transglobal Underground exercise in electronically boosted tom-toms, repetitive rather than mesmeric.

"[10] Kiran Aditham of Ink19 wrote: "Tracing the ancestry of modern beats back to where it truly originated, the duo of Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons utilize a building percussive onslaught with a baritone-voiced sample to accompany their trademark acidic melodies."

He adds that the duo forgo guest singers, in favour of "just the pair, their gear, and the repetitive voice blurting the song’s namesake over and over.