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How South African Sensation Tyla Brought The World To Its Feet

How South African Sensation Tyla Brought The World To Its Feet

TYGER TYGER
Tyla wears Balenciaga. Photographed by Rafael Pavarotti. Styled by George Krakowiak. Vogue, March 2025.

On the street outside an invite-only showcase at Katy’s Palace Bar—a multi-level, industrial-chic venue with incredible views over Kramerville, Johannesburg—a well-heeled, ready-to-party crowd is gathering. As they wait to get in, they dance to the amapiano tunes they can hear being spun by the glamorous blue-haired DJ Tshegu from inside the capacious warehouse, which has been decked out to resemble a nightclub-meets-lifestyle festival dedicated to all things Tyla, the 23-year-old South African sensation whose 2023 megahit “Water” has had more than 10 billion views on TikTok alone. There is the Tyger Tuck Shop—a reference to the name of her global fanbase—for customized jerseys, T-shirts, bandanas, and hats. There are Tyger manicures being given at a nail bar, alongside glittery Tyger tattoos, a free-flowing bar serving drinks in Tyger cups… You get the picture.

It’s 8.30pm and Tyla is due on stage in half an hour, but no one is clock-watching, everybody is too busy dancing. Finally, at 10pm, she appears with her band wearing a large furry hat, a pale pink boob tube, tiger-print skirt and matching heels. Her presence immediately commands the room as she launches into the songs (including the reggae-infused “Push 2 Start,” the Tems collaboration “No 1” and, of course, “Water”) that have propelled her to become music’s most powerful new mononym and claim the title “Queen of popiano.” The audience belts out the lyrics to every tune. The glorious roars, screams, chants, cheers and whistles of approval don’t stop. And neither do the bodies dancing.

“You know when you’ve always felt like you’re destined for something? That you’re going to make it one day? But then when it actually happens… It’s like something you can’t explain. It doesn’t feel real.

It’s three weeks earlier, in London, and Tyla—full name Tyla Laura Seethal—is earnestly attempting to make sense of her extraordinary blink-of-an-eye catapult to world domination. She has just wrapped a British Vogue video shoot in south London and she and I are riding in the back of a Mercedes-Benz V-Class eight-seater en route to her hotel for a pit stop before she heads to the airport. For the journey across the city, where she’s been for barely 72 hours, her 5ft 3in frame is cocooned in a white fluffy dressing gown with matching slippers, her glossy caramel legs (which she moisturized as she got into the car) sprawled across three seats in front of me. It’s not quite a horizontal stance à la Mariah Carey, but definitely a kind of half-laying situation. Tyla is literally, unapologetically, taking up space.

She could be forgiven for being a little on the tired side. After all, we are meeting at the tail end of a year that saw her infectious mashup of pop, R&B, Afrobeats and, of course, amapiano—a style of house music that originated from the South African townships—get the world dancing at her (perfectly manicured) feet. If 2023 was her breakout, 2024 was the year she became a fully fledged superstar: At the Grammys, Tyla took home the gong for best African music performance, making her the youngest African artist to win an award. A month later came her eponymous debut album (which at the time of writing has more than 1.5 billion streams). In October, she donned a shimmery, fringed bustier, teensy shorts and, yes, the requisite wings to perform on the Victoria’s Secret runway in New York alongside singers Cher and Blackpink’s Lisa, as fashion legends Adriana Lima, Tyra Banks, Candice Swanepoel, Ashley Graham, Joan Smalls, and Doutzen Kroes did the Angel thing. “Props to my mum!” Tyla says, smiling widely in response to me lauding her catwalk strut. “She taught me how to walk.”

 

Image may contain Aya Jones Black Hair Hair Person Face Head Photography Portrait Adult Body Part Finger and Hand
Coated linen trench coat, Jil Sander by Lucie & Luke Meier
 
 
From the outside looking in, Tyla’s rise to fame has been nothing short of phenomenal, seemingly exploding out of nothing and nowhere. That’s not how she sees it. “Since I was little, when anyone asked me what I wanted to become, I always said, ‘I’m going to become a singer,’” she tells me, a determination in her voice, in between delicate mouthfuls of pap, boerewors sausage, and chutney, a quintessential South African meal she cooked herself as part of her Vogue video shoot and packed up for the car ride.
 
Michael Jackson, Aaliyah, Beyoncé, and Britney Spears: These were the artists that soundtracked her childhood in Johannesburg, where she grew up, the second of four siblings to parents of Zulu, Indian, Mauritian, and Irish descent. But it was the Barbados-born Rihanna who really moved the needle for Tyla and to whom she is most often compared. “Coming from somewhere outside the States, I really looked up to her,” she says. “I used to think you’re only going to become famous if you’re born in America. She made me realize there is another way.”

Young Tyla would sing everywhere. “For my family, for competitions, on talent shows, on Instagram…” The latter is where she was spotted, in 2019, by photographer and music producer Garth von Glehn, who would introduce her to manager Colin Gayle (the British-born Jamaican behind Africa Creative Agency, known for taking African musicians global and bringing the likes of 50 Cent and Ne-Yo to the African continent). “He wanted me to come in to record in a studio,” Tyla recalls. “So I met him—my parents came with me—and I recorded my first song that day.” Following that, she was “literally going between school and the studio, school, studio, school, studio…” The last year of high school she recalls as particularly stressful, “But I knew this is what I wanted to do.”

Making a video for her first single, “Getting Late,” proved a turning point for both her and her parents, who had earmarked a career for their daughter in mining engineering. “That video went…” she says signalling upwards, alluding to its success. “Especially in South Africa and Africa. And from there I showed my parents that I was serious about this and that it is possible. They didn’t want me to be disappointed if things didn’t go my way. But I was so adamant. I was going to make it happen no matter what.” Her perseverance paid off—her parents were convinced, as were Epic Records. That same year, in 2021, she signed with the label (a Sony subsidiary whose roster also includes Travis Scott).

Image may contain Aya Jones Accessories Bag Handbag Adult Person Face Head Photography Portrait and Purse
Jacquard bandeau top, Prada. Spandex legging boots, Balenciaga

 

A few years prior, the label amalgamated with Bad Boy Entertainment, the widely successful record label owned by music mogul Diddy. At the time of our interview, Diddy—born Sean Combs— is awaiting trial for a roster of alleged crimes, including sex trafficking, all of which he denies, and whispers of criminal behavior from powerful men in the music industry against women and girls are huge talking points. I ask her how she feels, as a young, female singer, stepping into an industry on the potential cusp of a newer, deeper wave of a MeToo moment. Did she have those conversations with her parents? Were they concerned?

“Always,” says Tyla, not missing a beat. “My parents have always been very protective.” And while she describes herself as “street smart,” she is nevertheless cautious. “Even before ‘Water,’ I would never go to the studio alone. I was very careful,” she says. “But yeah, my parents are always worried.” If her siblings are as anxious as their parents, it certainly doesn’t show. Whitney, her older sister, is “always posting on social media, like a proud mum,” Tyla says with a smile, though her younger brother, Tyrese, finds it all “too dramatic. He doesn’t want to take pictures with me!” It’s her younger sister, Sydney, who is making the most of her big sister’s fame. “Ah! She is enjoyinggg!” says Tyla, laughing, her South African accent thickening. “She is going to all the events, literally just eating it all up!” Sydney recently joined Tyla in New York, where the singer is increasingly spending more and more of her time. How is she adapting to the Big Apple? “Hmm, it’s very different,” is her diplomatic response. “Sometimes I just miss having the sun and a yard and all my family around. So I love my sister being with me. She’s like a piece of home.”

Unsurprisingly (the face! The body! The vim! The moves!), the fashion world has welcomed Tyla with open arms. Dolce & Gabbana was the first to take notice: Tyla’s first major fashion week performance was at its afterparty in Milan in February 2023. Last summer, Louis Vuitton’s men’s creative director, Pharrell Williams, personally invited her to perform at the Prelude to the Paris Olympics at Fondation Louis Vuitton. “I was just excited to meet Pharrell. And,” she adds chuckling, rolling her eyes good-naturedly, “my mum kept calling me saying, ‘Don’t forget to tell him I said hello!’” For her inaugural Met Gala in May 2024, her dress was designed by Olivier Rousteing, Balmain’s creative director, and was made out of sand. When he took a pair of scissors to theatrically shorten its hem after the red carpet, the pair stole the show, to say nothing of the majority of the night’s meme coverage. “Tyla pushes the boundaries of music in a similar way that I push the boundaries of fashion with Balmain,” is Rousteing’s take. “I could not think of a better woman to wear this look.”

“Playing dress-up,” says Tyla, “is fun. And I love wearing heels. It just makes me feel more like a diva!” Her looks, be it on the red carpet or on set, are wholly collaborative. “I’m very hands-on with everything I put out. I know how I want to feel that day and how I want to look.” Thebe Magugu, the South African, Johannesburg-based designer who won the LVMH prize in 2019 and Tyla collaborator, testifies to this. “Tyla has so much fun with fashion. I am always pleasantly surprised at how she takes my collections and completely twists, tucks, cuts and transforms them into something only Tyla can pull off and convincingly wear. For example, my classic Sisterhood tank is straightforward, but when she dresses in it she twists the hem into a knot and tucks it under the bust to transform it into a cropped compression bra-tank hybrid.”

Image may contain Zoë Kravitz Clothing Swimwear Adult Person Face Head Photography Portrait and Performer
Crepe jersey bandeau top, Courrèges. Embellished duchesse satin shorts, Dilara Findikoglu. Embellished chain-mail bags, (worn as a headdress and necklace), Leo Costelloe for Monique Fei

 

Beyond the fits, “Tyla represents South Africa’s cultural renaissance,” Magugu adds. “She unapologetically showcases—even boasts—about our culture. It’s a beautiful reminder to use where you are from as fuel to push you further, not something to hide so you can assimilate.” Tyla, for her part, does not feel the weight of representing South Africa on a global stage—rather, she says, “I feel really proud. After everything we have been through, it’s such an amazing feeling.”

The UK, in particular, has long embraced and been influenced by the South African music scene. Reading-raised DJ Charisse C, the South African amapiano powerhouse and NTS radio presenter, explains that amapiano’s success in the UK stems from a long-standing relationship with South African dance music. “It goes back to the times when sounds like bacardi and songs like DJ Mujava’s ‘Township Funk’ were really instrumental to shaping and influencing underground club culture in the UK.” Which, ironically, resonated deeper when lockdown hit. “On social media, people were seeing the ways in which South African people were connecting to dance music at home and the viral videos of them dancing at parties. That spirit of joy really connected with people.”

Hence the level of fame Tyla is now operating in hits far beyond her home turf. But it can be lonely—and, at times, intimidating. Once, not long after the launch of her first single, “Getting Late,” she was accosted by three middle-aged men at a US airport. “They were like, ‘We know you. You’re Tyla,’” she recalls. “‘We should go for a drink.’ I was alone because my friend went to go get something and there’s these big men asking me all these questions. It was scary.” She now has security with her at all times, which means she can no longer do the things she once took for granted. “Sometimes I even cry over it,” she admits. “I just miss being able to walk. Or sit in the park. Or go to Nando’s.” The last time she tried, she went to order “and they all started singing ‘Make me sweat…’”

 

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 Textured jacket, Stella McCartney
 

She can “probably walk around, but I have to be in disguise because I don’t like when people record me,” she continues. “It’s not like I don’t love my supporters or anything—ask for a picture, we can take one—but when people secretly try to take videos or photos… How do you have the right to just do that? It feels like it should be illegal.”

And then, of course, there are the inevitable online controversies, now part and parcel of modern-day celebrity. Even in her short time in the limelight, she has borne the brunt of social media’s outrage on a number of occasions. At last year’s MTV Video Music Awards, Lil Nas X and Halle Bailey presented Tyla with an award for her win in the best Afrobeats category. Her decision to hand the trophy to Lil Nas X, because it was too heavy, was lambasted. “When people were telling me I’m entitled,” she explains, our car still snaking through London to her hotel, “I was very confused because I was just asking Lil Nas, who is a friend, to help me hold it while I was giving the speech,”she explains. “Guys, those awards are very heavy! And at that moment, I had an important message. I really didn’t want to be focused on struggling to hold this award.” The “important message”—in which she called winning “bittersweet” and expressed her disappointment with the organizers for grouping all African artists under Afrobeats—also sparked negative responses, with many interpreting her comments as a slight on Afrobeats, the musical genre with Nigerian roots. She rejects the accusation. “Afrobeats is the reason we are even getting recognized. It’s a genre that broke down many doors. I was just feeling a certain way about it because it is the only African category and it takes away from both Afrobeats andamapiano.”

Undoubtedly, though, the biggest Tyla controversy to date concerned the language she used to describe her racial identity. When a 2020 TikTok video, in which she proudly described herself as “a coloured South African” resurfaced in 2023, it sent the internet into a vitriolic meltdown, particularly within the Black community in the States (“We are not gonna call her ‘coloured’ here and if she personally demands it, her career will end before it begins,” was one of many furious responses on X). For context, in the US “coloured” harkens back to the racist Jim Crow era when the term was a slur used to segregate and oppress Black people even after slavery officially ended. Tyla’s use of the word was not only considered egregious and offensive, but also a denial of her Blackness. In South Africa, however, the term “coloured” came about as a form of segregation during apartheid. The Population Registration Act of 1950 forced South Africans to be registered into one of three racial categories: white, native or coloured (largely descendants of enslaved mixed-heritage people), with Asian added later. It was a policy created to divide Black and coloured people; the latter, due to their proximity to whiteness, had the advantage of relatively better living standards and employment over their Black (ie “native”) counterparts. And so Tyla’s comments were also taken as an insinuation of superiority over Black people.

Tyla takes a breath. For the first time during our ride, the light in her eyes dims and her shoulders drop ever so slightly. “Honestly,” she begins, “I felt like I had no…," she pauses, searching for the right word, “no control. People took it and… It just went so far that I didn’t know what to do. The way people painted me… And I understand that word is a sensitive word to people, so I don’t blame people for being touched about it. I just would have wanted an opportunity for people to actually truly listen and learn.”

Image may contain Claudette Ortiz Clothing Coat Jacket Adult Person Accessories and Belt
Leather coat, Bottega Veneta. Belts, Hermès, Michael Kors Collection and Stella McCartney. Legging boots, as before  

 

During an American radio interview in June 2024, with host Charlamagne tha God, her refusal to be drawn into a conversation around the furore only exacerbated the matter. But she stands by her decision. “Me choosing not to say anything, I’m happy that I didn’t. I didn’t want to explain my culture and something that is really important to me on a platform that is just going to be purposefully misconstrued. I’ve explained it a lot of times before, but people took that and put words in my mouth. They said a whole bunch of things that I never said and ran with it. If people really searched, they’ll see that in South Africa we had a lot of segregation. It was bad for a lot of us. They just classified us. And that just so happens to be the name that the white people called us. They chose to call people that were mixed ‘coloured.’ And I’m not gonna lie, it was hard because all my life, obviously I knew ‘I’m Black’ but also knew that ‘I’m coloured.’ So when I went to America and people were like, ‘You can’t say that!’ I was in a position where I was like, ‘Oh, so what do I do? What am I then?’”

It wasn’t the first time her identity was questioned. In primary school, Tyla was bullied for her hair texture (“Your hair’s so poofy. Your hair looks better straight”) and her skin tone (“Look how much darker you are!”). I was baffled by this, considering Tyla’s fair skin tone, at least in the context of Black skin. “I went to a very white primary school,” she explains. “I really hated myself. And then I went to high school, which was predominantly Black and cultured, and that’s where I actually grew to love myself and became really proud of who I am.”

The debate has simmered. The fire, she acknowledges, is not quite out. But she has made her peace with it. “You know that even if you give the best explanation, people will still choose not to understand. But,” she adds, a hint of steel in her voice, “I’m at a point where I know who I am. I know I’m a Black woman and I know I’m a coloured woman as well and you can be both. And the people that care to learn, they understand now. And that’s enough for me.”

Image may contain Adult Person Face Head Photography Portrait Dancing Leisure Activities Clothing and Footwear
Jersey vest and linen miniskirt, Gucci. Vegan leather belt, Stella McCartney. Socks, Falke. Patent-leather shoes, Paris Texas

 

She’s found a lifeline within her family, her team—“They are like my family”—and close friends, such as the adored British singer Raye. “We can talk about anything,” she says of the multi-Brit Award winner. “We can laugh, joke, dance, we pray together… She’s like a big sister to me.”

“Tyla is such a beautiful, sweet soul,” Raye tells me. “We met backstage at a festival last year and bonded over some of the trials and difficulties we face sometimes in this career path we have chosen. It’s a beautiful, safe friendship we have formed. And,” she adds, “she’s even helping me learn to shake my bum better.”

Our Mercedes is about 10 minutes away from Tyla’s hotel, where she’ll have about 15 more to shower and get dressed before heading off to Heathrow. She’s flying back to her hometown, Johannesburg, ahead of her South African tour. “I’m so excited to be performing in Africa again,” she says, her eyes lighting back up. She is poised, focused. Her self-possession is at points a touch disconcerting; breaking eye contact is not her style. She’s unafraid in her responses, while remaining a no-is-a-complete-sentence kind of girl. So there are guardrails. Some are can’t-put-your-finger-on-it intangible, others more direct, such as when I ask her about her love life.

“Hmmm,” she starts, bemused. “Honestly,” she pauses, “I don’t even have time for myself so it’s really difficult thinking of getting like a whole, you know, person. I have really good friends. Yeah, so just leave it at that.” She bursts out laughing. The mirth carries with it an undercurrent of Tyla’s particular brand of charisma. It speaks to an unwavering confidence, a faith in herself that she attributes to a higher power. “I would be lying if I didn’t say it was God, because I know one hundred per cent it was and it still is.”

Image may contain Adult Person Face Head Photography Portrait Black Hair and Hair
Feather jacket, Dilara Findikoglu

 

Three weeks later, I am in Johannesburg and Tyla and I are in a private room after the show at Katy’s Palace Bar. “I had fun!” she exclaims excitedly. She seems so much more at ease than she was in London. “When I come home,” she explains, “I feel like I’m performing for my family. They get me, they get the random things I say, we feed off each other’s energy. It’s chill.”

It’s almost midnight, she still has a meet-and-greet and a 5am flight to Cape Town for the first of her sold-out arena shows. Their scale marks a tipping point in her career, enshrining her arrival in the fast lane of fame. And so what more can we expect from Tyla in 2025? “I really feel like I have changed so much since ‘Water’ and my debut album. I have grown into a different version of myself. A little more spicy, a little more bold. I’m excited to just put that into the music.”

I wonder whether we will see her plant one of the other inevitable markers on the celebrity roadmap of commercialization: Tyla Beauty! Tyla Whisky! Tyla Lingerie! “Music is my first love,” she says with a smile, giving nothing away, ruling nothing out. “Maybe one day I’ll want to dabble in acting, beauty, creative directing, fashion… I really have a love for it all and I know I can do it all.”

She locks eyes with me once more, her gaze seemingly superglued to mine. “While I’m on this earth, I just want to touch everything.”

 

Image may contain Zoë Kravitz Clothing Footwear Shoe High Heel Person Face Head Photography and Portrait
Bikini and leather sandals, Marc Jacobs, at Bergdorf Goodman. Socks, Falke.

 

In this story: Hair: Zhou Xue Ming. Make-up: Chiao Li Hsu. Nails: Simone Cummings. Set design: Ibby Njoya. Production: Ragi Dholakia Productions. Digital artwork: Dtouch London

Author: BY FUNMI FETTO PHOTOGRAPHY BY RAFAEL PAVAROTTI STYLED BY GEORGE KRAKOWIAK

Source: Teen Vogue

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