Tyla Unwraps How 2023 Has Been For Her. Tyla, the sultry South African singer has been dead set on pop stardom since well before she emerged as one of the standouts of her homeland’s expanding amapiano scene. Now, with her latest single “Water” conquering TikTok and rising up the charts, the dreams she had growing up in Johannesburg are finally coming true.
Speaking to Drum at the launch, she says this year has been rewarding for her just as it has been overwhelming, beautiful and a rollercoaster.“Overwhelming because a lot has happened in a short amount of time. Beautiful because South African music is going to the world. It’s literally our time now. Not even talking about my music, like in general, African music is taking over. So, it’s just something that makes me so happy because people know how much I love my continent and my country.”
“And yoh, this year has been a rollercoaster because even though people have seen all the glamour and they’ve seen everything that we’ve shown them but behind the scenes it’s been a lot, like a lot of hard work, a lot of crying, a lot of fighting that went into me as an artist and my project that’s coming out.”
In her music, Tyla says she is intentional about merging the various South African music genres in her songs.“Growing up, I listened to so many different types of music. I had the influence of RnB, pop, house, Kwaito and Amapiano. I’ve had so much influence and I love so many different sounds. I just never felt like one genre fit me as an artist. I love R& B melodies, but then I love the lock drum in Amapiano and I just always wanted to mix everything together and also bring our sound to the world in a new way.”
