Variety recently sat down with Tyla, the 23-year-old South African sensation, in a Manhattan studio where she lounged in a robe after a long photoshoot, her slippers discarded on the floor. Despite her petite frame, her presence is anything but small—especially as she cues up her latest single, “Bliss,” a sultry blend of R&B and Afrobeats. “It’s such a real love song,” she says, acknowledging its dramatic intensity. The track’s cover art—featuring her drenched in sweat, pressed against a man’s bare chest—mirrors the raw emotion in lyrics like “I don’t want to live without you.” For Tyla, love and loss are intertwined, and that vulnerability fuels her music.
Her rise has been meteoric. Just last year, her self-titled debut album and its global smash, “Water,” catapulted her into the spotlight. The track, built on amapiano rhythms but infused with pop and R&B, became a cultural phenomenon, thanks in part to a viral TikTok dance where she glided across the floor, pouring water over her hips. The song topped charts in over 40 countries, earned a Grammy, and made her the highest-charting solo African female artist in U.S. history. But the whirlwind left her breathless. “When ‘Water’ happened, I wasn’t ready,” she admits. “I became obsessed with doing things ‘right.’”
Now, she’s recalibrating. Her recent EP, WWP (short for We Wanna Party), serves as a bridge to her upcoming second album, which she promises will be a “totally different vibe.” Tracks like “Mr. Media” take aim at public scrutiny, a theme she knows all too well after facing debates over her mixed-race identity (Zulu, Irish, and Mauritian-Indian). “When who you are is challenged, it shakes you,” she says, reflecting on the controversy around her identifying as “Coloured”—a term loaded with different meanings in South Africa versus the U.S.
Her roots are never far from her mind. Growing up in Edenvale, South Africa, in a strict but music-filled household, she and her siblings turned their backyard tree into a stage, dreaming up superhero fantasies. By 14, she was performing at school recess, inspired by Destiny’s Child. At 16, she caught the attention of producers, though early industry pressures nearly derailed her. “I was pushed toward generic pop,” she recalls. “But I fought to keep my sound African.”
That persistence paid off. Today, she’s a fashion icon (her Balmain sand dress at the 2024 Met Gala was unforgettable) and a festival headliner, having debuted “Bliss” at Coachella without warning her team. Yet beneath the glamour, she’s still the girl who loves hard and fears loss deeply. “If my heart is broken, it’s brrrrroken,” she laughs.
With a new amapiano single, “Chanel,” on the horizon and a genre-blending album in the works, Tyla is poised for another leap. “This time, it’s way more personal,” she says. “Way more like me.” As she heads to her next shoot, still wrapped in her robe, she grins: “I want to do almost everything. I want to look back one day and say, ‘Damn! I really lived my life.’” And if her trajectory so far is any indication, she already is.
Photo credit: Richie Shazam
The Pop Blog general news and updates, mostly from press releases and conferences.