Tyla on her ethos as a new-age, African popstar: “We are all limitless”

We’re days away from the release of ‘A*Pop’ when NME meets a highly energetic Tyla at the chicly minimalist Pan Pacific hotel. “Should the Gucci be in frame?” she questions our videographers, the bounce in her cadence as audacious as her overall demeanour. Like her album title suggests, this is an African popstar – from the walk to the talk to the look, there’s no pretense here. It’s who she’s always wanted to be. “[Ever] since I was a little girl in South Africa, I was always like, ‘Nah, there has to be a way,’” the 24-year-old says of her ambitions and how her debut single ‘Getting Late’, then mega-hit ‘Water’ got her to national, then world stages. “I was performing in a club, not long before I was performing in an arena. Not long before I was winning a Grammy! Not long before I was on the World Cup stage, you know what I mean.” On her sophomore album, Tyla looks to shift the lens from world-stages to her Johannesburg roots, letting the world into what a contemporary African popstar could look and feel like. She tells us about working with South African talent, having flipped a regional classic ‘Fairytale’ alongside the prolific Liquideep. “That’s a wedding song,” she exclaims. ...