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M U S I C 17
Tyla: South Africa to the World
Efe Imoyin-Omene
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
If the name Tyla doesn’t ring a bell to you, it’s likely her
delicate yet powerful voice will. It is behind the 2023
viral hit Water. Laced with innuendos, coy flirtation and
an addictive dance challenge, the track was poised for
success.
Make me sweat, make me hotter
Make me lose my breath, make me water
The bells are ringing now, huh?
While she is not new to the music scene-having released
her debut single ‘Getting Late’ in 2019 right after
leaving high school- ‘Water’ has certainly
placed her on the international stage.
With ‘Water’s viral
success, she became
the youngest South-
African and the first South-
African soloist in 55 years to
enter the US Billboard Hot 100,
her song peaked at No. 7.
It peaked at number one on both the UK Hip Hop/R&B
and Afrobeats charts and as of writing this article, the top
15 in places like Nigeria, Norway, Singapore, and Switzerland.
Seemingly, taking the world by storm.
Furthermore, she won Best African Music
Performance at the 2024 Grammys.
On December 1st, she released three singles,
‘Truth or Dare’, ‘Butterflies’ and ‘On and On’,
teasing her self-titled debut album stated for a
March 22nd release.
It goes without saying (even
though I’m literally about to say
it), that this is Tyla’s moment.
But moments aren’t just given,
they’re made.
This is the making of Tyla’s moment.
Engineered for Virality
Firstly, ‘Water’ has an undeniably catchy chorus. While it was wellcrafted
for virality, unlike other viral hits, the songwriting is never
compromised.
Although many modern songs tend to be shorter
to accommodate for consumers’ dwindling
attention spans, ‘Water’ is a breezy 3 minutes and
20 seconds and a breath of fresh air in an endless
rotation of microwaveable ‘hits’.
She cooed it best on the song’s second verse:
You ain’t gotta go nowhere
You can stay inside it
Additionally, she uses a lot of earworm phrases and melodies in
the choruses and hooks of her songs. This helps them get stuck in
our heads.
Now you care? (Ah)
Truth or dare?
Are you playing?
Truth or dare? (Tell me)– Tyla, ‘Truth or Dare’
Let the party go on all night long
We can go on, on and on- ‘Tyla, On and On’
Another person known for this is Rihanna (one of Tyla’s chief
influences).
You can stand under my umbrella, ella, ella, eh,
eh, eh
Under my umbrella, ella, ella, eh, eh, eh– Rihanna,
‘Umbrella’
Just get ready fi work, work, work, work,
work, work
He said me haffi work, work, work,
work, work, work- Rihanna, ‘Work’
Versatility
Tyla’s music combines
R&B, Pop, Afrobeats and
Ampiano, which is a Nguni
word loosely translated to ‘the
pianos’. It is a subgenre of House
music that emerged in South Africa in the
mid-2010s.
This diversity makes her
unpredictable, with the only sure
thing being excellent quality. This
prevents her from being boxed in by
genre.
Through this, she has created the freedom to
experiment whenever and with whatever she
chooses.
Moreover, this allows her to appeal to
many different markets. More on her
mass appeal later.
The percussion-heavy nature of
Ampiano music gives her songs
a unique sense of danceability
too.
While non-dancing pop acts became the norm for
a while, thanks to the increasing visibility of black
female artists like Normani, Tinashe, Chlöe, Victoria
Monét and Leigh-Anne and the international
popularity of K-Pop, the girls (and some of the guys)
are giving choreo again.
Beauty is in the eye of the… Desirability
Capital!
There’s no subtle way for me to phrase this so I’m
just gonna be real: Tyla is drop dead gorgeous!
Ten, ten, ten across the board.
Her face card never declines,
my gawd.
As much as society enjoys trotting out
trite phrases like ‘beauty is only skin
deep’ and ‘what matters is what’s on
the inside’, we rarely practice what we
preach.
Most celebrities are conventionally
attractive, not by coincidence but by design.
And with her light-brown
skin, dainty noise, toned frame and mixed
heritage (her family is of Zulu, Indian, Mauritian
and Irish descent), Tyla fits a racially ambiguous
beauty standard, thus benefitting from colourism
(prejudice or discrimination against individuals with
a dark skin tone).
This allows her to appeal to many communities in a way that her
unambiguous and/or dark-skin Black counterparts struggle to.
The African Wave
From artists like Tems (the first Nigerian female artist to be
nominated for an Oscar) to Wizkid, Burna Boy, Ayra Starr, Davido,
Rema, and many others getting well overdue international
recognition to Western artists like Beyoncé, Ed Sheeran, Selena
Gomez, Justin Bieber and countless others rushing to collaborate
with them, it is abundantly clear that the cultural temperature
is finally warming up to the heat African music has always been
serving.
Consequently, Tyla is now being showcased to
an audience ready to enter her world. On top of
that, she is working with Western producers and
songwriters like Tricky Stewart, known for his work
with hitmakers like Beyoncé, Rihanna, Britney
Spears, Mariah Carey, and many others.
This gives audiences unfamiliar with South African music a sense
of comfort when listening to her as while her sound is fresh, it’s not
entirely foreign.
Photos (top to bottom):
Annie Reid/Press and Sony
Music
Innuendos
In a recent Genuis interview, Tyla mentioned
the 2001 song ‘Rock The Boat’ by late R&B
singer and actress Aaliyah, which is
about rocking something else, if you
catch my drift.
‘Water’ is similar in the fact that its
allure rests in what’s implied, like
the R&B songs of the 90s and early
2000s.
Nowadays many
songs about sex are
gratuitously explicit.
Tyla, by returning
to tradition,
plays on our
collective
obsession
with nostalgia
and seamlessly
places herself
in conversation
with the icons she
one day hopes to
become. And by
alluding to the intimate,
her music can be enjoyed
by all ages and cultures.
This is Tyla’s moment. I’m here for it.
Are you?