Tyla attended the MTV VMAs award ceremony on September 11, 2024, where she won the Best Afrobeats award, with Lil Nas and Halle Bailey on stage. During her acceptance, she asked the two stars to hold her award, and at her request, Lil Nas took the award from her so Tyla could give her acceptance speech. The moment attracted the attention of internet trolls.
Now the singer has responded to the trolling, taking to X on September 12, 2024:
Tyla was awarded the Moon Person award for the song Water. The singer stated in her acceptance speech:
"The global impact that ‘Water’ has had on the world just proves that African music can be pop music, too. This is just so special, but also bittersweet because I know there’s a tendency to group all African artists under Afrobeats."
She continued:
"It’s a thing, and even though Afrobeats has run things and has opened so many doors for us, African music is so diverse. It’s more than just Afrobeats."
More on Water by Tyla
Water is an ampiano song by Tyla, which was released on July 28, 2023, as the lead single from her debut album, Tyla. The single was produced by Sammy Soso and was highly successful upon release, charting at number 4 on the UK singles chart.
The singer elaborated on the track in an exclusive interview with Rolling Stone on November 30, 2023, stating:
“I’m usually driven by the beat. When someone plays me a beat, it has to grab me in order for me to even want to work on it. I love listening to beats, singing random things that come to me, and then listening back and choosing what fits best. After, the words just come."
She continued:
"As soon as I heard ‘Water,,’ I said, ‘It’s over.’ We have the song. I would describe ‘Water’ as the song of the year … it’s the sound of Africa. It’s not only for Africa, but it’s for the world … It’s literally me bring Africa to the world."
The self-titled album Tyla was released on March 22, 2024. The album has been a major success since its release, peaking at number 24 on the Billboard 200 album chart and at number 11 on the Dutch album chart, among other chart successes. The album has also been gold-certified in Canada and Brazil respectively.
The tracklist for the album is given below:
- Intro feat Kelvin Momo
- Safer
- Water
- Truth or Dare
- No.1 feat Tems
- Breathe Me
- Butterflies
- On & On
- Jump feat Gunna & Skillibeng
- Art
- On My Body feat. Becky G
- Priorities
- To Last
- Water Remix feat. Travis Scott
Tyla was set to embark on a world tour in support of her debut album but she had to cancel said tour due to a worsening injury. The singer will release the rescheduled dates of her tour sometime soon. She currently has one show scheduled for Mexico City, Mexico at the Corona Capital Festival.
