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< Tyla is the new face of African pop. She's aiming to take over the whole world

March 28, 20245:08 AM ET

Tyla is the new face of African pop. She's aiming to take over the whole world

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Transcript

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

South African singer Tyla is having a big year. Her breakout single water has more than 500 million plays on Spotify.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WATER")

TYLA: (Singing) Make me sweat. Make me hotter. Make me lose my breath. Make me water.

FADEL: She earned the first ever Grammy in a new category, best African music performance.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

TYLA: Oh, my. What the heck?

(CHEERING)

TYLA: What? Oh my gosh, guys, this is crazy. Like...

FADEL: And all this before Tyla even released a full-length album. NPR music reporter Sidney Madden has her story.

SIDNEY MADDEN, BYLINE: Tyla's mission is clear. She's setting out to change the geography of pop stardom.

TYLA: I feel like the industry is lacking an African pop star.

MADDEN: Tyla is 22 years old and from Johannesburg, South Africa.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WATER")

TYLA: (Singing) Can you blow my mind - set off my whole body? If I give you my time...

MADDEN: For many listeners, her song "Water" is their first taste of a new sound from her home. It's called amapiano, a genre Tyla discovered herself when she was 16.

TYLA: I was in class. I was in school. That day I remember, like, distinctively because this one song was playing called "Gong Gong (ph)."

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ISKHATHI (GONG GONG)")

KWIISH SA: Jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, jump.

TYLA: And since then, like, oh my word, I got obsessed as soon as I heard the log drum - endlessly. Yeah.

MADDEN: Yeah. Amapiano is a musical movement that started in the 2010s. Roughly translated from Zulu to mean the pianos or piano people, amapiano is a mashup of a few different genres - deep house, jazz, kwaito, and log drum percussive. Together, it all creates entrancing mid-tempo music that's a cultural staple in South Africa's party scene.

DJ MOMA: Amapiano is a lifestyle. You're not supposed to sweat.

MADDEN: DJ mOma, a Sudanese American DJ first got hip to the lifestyle himself when he visited Johannesburg in 2016.

DJ MOMA: That's why amapiano is at this really cool tempo where you can bust out a dance move or two, but you're not constantly chasing a hectic 125 BPM tempo.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GETTING LATE")

TYLA: (Singing) Baby, I know it's getting late, and you don't want to wait. But I won't waste your time, and I - baby...

MADDEN: When Tyla dropped her first song, "Getting Late," in 2019, it fit the mold of a standard amapiano track.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GETTING LATE")

TYLA: (Singing) Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah...

MADDEN: From there, Tyla's parents gave her one year to make her music career work, and the timing wasn't great.

TYLA: And it was actually worse because COVID happened in that year. So I was like, really? Like, out of all years, it had to happen in this year.

MADDEN: But still, with all the lockdowns, Tyla and her team shot the music video for "Getting Late." Once they dropped it, the music industry took notice quick. DJ mOma saw the potential right away.

DJ MOMA: The first thing I said - I was like, this is amapiano but pop, and she has a star quality.

MADDEN: As she developed her sound, Tyla took the building blocks of amapiano and added elements of global pop made by stars she grew up idolizing, like Rihanna and Justin Bieber.

TYLA: The pop and R&B mainly sits in the melody choices, you know, and song structure. And then obviously the beat is where home really shows.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NO. 1")

TYLA AND TEMS: (Singing) OK, I'm leaving tonight. OK, I'm good in my life. I got to put me No. 1 - no compromising.

MADDEN: On her self-titled debut album, Tyla shows off a blend of Pan African sounds perfectly - like on the track "No. 1," featuring Nigerian star Tems.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NO. 1")

TYLA AND TEMS: (Singing) Not begging you for something, something.

MADDEN: And her signature sound is flexible enough to blend with Latin, reggae and hip-hop.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "JUMP")

TYLA, GUNNA AND SKILLIBENG: (Singing) They ain't never heard a pretty girl from Joburg. See me now, and that's what they prefer. I don't touch no wheel 'cause I got a chauffeur - first class how I get around the world.

MADDEN: For Tyla, the goals are to spread the pride and sounds of her country and keep the people who created amapiano at the forefront of the movement.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ART")

TYLA: (Singing) Ain't this what you came to see? Let me be your muse. I'll inspire you.

I mean, we've obviously heard African artists that have pushed boundaries, but I feel like now is really a time where people are actually paying attention to us properly and actually latching on to the music and the culture and showing interest beyond just the trends, you know? And now we have African artists leading it.

MADDEN: Thanks to this debut, Tyla has proven she's one of those leaders.

Sidney Madden, NPR Music.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ART")

TYLA: (Singing) I'll be your piece. I'll be your piece. I'll be your piece.

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