Want to party with Tyla? Here are the ground rules. First things first, it has to be dark — day parties are fine, but for a real turn up, the only light should be flashing from spotlights and lasers. Aircon is non-negotiable. Boring punters nodding along from the sidelines are a red flag. She needs fog machines, dancing on tables, “the whole shebang”. It has to be “lit”, “a vibe”, packed full of people who can match her energy on the dancefloor. “I love to party,” says the 23-year-old pop phenomenon, draped elegantly across a sofa at Sony’s London HQ, every limb drenched in body glitter. “But I won’t go if there’s no one to kiki with.”
This is exactly the wave the next-gen hitmaker has been riding lately. And who can blame her? In the past two years, she’s shot from a rising star in her native South Africa to undeniable global chart topper. Ever since her breakout single Water went viral in 2023 — assisted by a dance routine that sees her pour a bottle of water over herself mid-twerk — Tyla has swept through the music industry with dizzying speed, collecting accolades and smashing records on her way. She’s won a Grammy, performed at Coachella, soundtracked the return of the Victoria’s Secret runway show and been immortalised in the Getty Images hall of fame after getting slimed at the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards. In other words: Tyla’s made it. Now it’s time to let her hair down.
“There was a lot going on in my life,” she says, legs crossed, the diamanté straps on her stilettos matching the sparkle of the diamond rings stacked on her fingers. “I was just like, nah, let me have fun.” A glass of white wine rests on the coffee table in front of her and she’s dressed to celebrate. Think: a vintage Jean Paul Gaultier mini dress and a pink and black striped fur sable draped over her shoulder, despite the mid-July heatwave outside. Flanked by her team (manager, assistant, publicist and a videographer capturing every move for social media), she’s in London to promote her new mixtape, the aptly titled WWP (We Wanna Party) — four self-described “bangers” that bottle the after-hours hedonism she’s been revelling in. Take Dynamite, a boisterous, dancehall-inflected number featuring Wizkid, who she convinced to collaborate after spotting him in her hotel lobby in 2022. Or Is It, the assertive lead single that pronounces her current mood in the opening line: “Is it the f***s that I don’t give?”
Compared to the flirty, singalong hooks of earlier hits like Push 2 Start and Truth or Dare, the sound is heavier — and the attitude is even louder still. This, she says, reflects the woman she’s become while navigating fame. “I came into [the industry] so innocent — thinking it’s not that serious. That we’re just pop stars, dressing up and singing,” says Tyla. “But over time, I realised you have to be strong. You can’t be a walkover. Be nice, but you have to know when to put your foot down.” She shrugs. “I don’t care as much what people think. If they’re not feeling me, it’s like, ‘Okay, move on.’”
Young Tyla (full name, Tyla Laura Seethal) was always, as she puts it, “a diva”. Growing up in Johannesburg, she jumped at any opportunity to perform, from primary school talent shows to make-shift fashion runways she’d stage for her family (“I would make sure everyone’s paying attention — like, watch me”). She was your classic middle child — always cracking jokes, laughing, “down for good vibes”. Music wasn’t necessarily the plan A, but it ran in the family. “Music was everywhere,” she says, emphasising each word. “My family sings, dances and plays instruments, so it was innate for me.”
Her grandmother, for instance, used to enter singing competitions to win money and cigarettes. Tyla’s own musical education was more typical of your digital-age pop fairytale: hours spent singing along to Adele, Whitney Houston and Ariana Grande, uploading covers to social media until finally you receive a DM that changes your life.
“I didn’t answer for a while, because I thought it was a scam,” she says, recalling a message she received from her first manager at 17. Her parents chaperoned their first meeting and she recorded her first track that very day. “From there, we were just hustling. It wasn’t a professional deal — just a guy that was down to help.”
Within a year, she’d released her first single, Getting Late, shortly after finishing high school. The influences of her R&B vocal heroes shine through. What really stood out, though, was how it fused the sounds of everyday Joburg: genres such as gqom, kwaito and, most notably, amapiano. It’s the latter that’s since become Tyla’s calling card. They call her the “Queen of Popiano” — South Africa’s first true global pop export.
I don’t think my parents thought my success would happen — but damn, it actually worked?!
The timing of Water couldn’t have been better. Not least because, in the run up to her international breakthrough, Tyla’s parents had given her an ultimatum: prove the pop star thing can work within a year, or go to uni to study mining engineering. “I don’t think they thought this would happen,” says Tyla. Nor, really, did she — at least this fast. “It was like, damn, it actually worked?!”
Popiano, it turns out, was the sound the world had been waiting for. Amapiano had already blown up in South Africa, but it didn’t explode globally until 2021, as party-goers emerging from lockdown sought fresh sounds to celebrate their freedom with. On dancefloors, the appeal is hard to deny. Merging deep house with rolling basslines and hypnotic log drums, amapiano is a slow burn, with long build-ups to euphoric drops that hit like a religious experience. Tyla was hooked from the beginning, determined to take a risk by making it her own. “For a long time, people would tell me to just make straight pop,” she says. By the time she’d refined her take on the genre, global audiences were already primed and ready for a radio-friendly variant, taking it out of clubs and into anywhere else with a speaker: bars, restaurants, Ubers, hairdressers, corner shops — you name it.
While everybody was inside during Covid, we were getting bangers that we were partying to in our houses. It was like a movement
“Amapiano has changed South Africa,” says Tyla. “We have more jobs, more gigs. Our DJs are travelling, more artists and creatives have opportunities.” But the boost it’s given South Africans goes beyond economics. “While everybody was stuck inside [during Covid], we were getting bangers that we were partying to in our houses — or at illegal parties. It was like a movement.” Tyla’s voice builds with emotion, her glittery black nails catching the light as she waves her arms emphatically. “The genre is spiritual. When I hear the log drum sounds banging, it’s something that’s deeper than just music.”
These days, Tyla is as much an ambassador for her country as for the genre that shaped her. Some might see being the first South African pop star to break through globally as a tremendous weight to carry, especially at such a young age. She treats it as a privilege. “I’m grateful. No matter how old I get, no matter what happens, my name will always be there as the girl that did that,” she says. “It was a long time coming. We needed that African person to show people that we can do it, you know? Even though it’s pressure, I’d do it all over again.”
Home is still clearly where the heart is. Going back to Johannesburg is how she stays grounded, surrounded by friends and family who keep the fame from going to her head. “My mum tells me straight: ‘You’re not a superstar in my house’. I clean my room, I cook, I do what I need to do,” she says. “I’m back to normal.” It helps, too, that celebrity status in South Africa doesn’t come with the trappings of fame in the UK or US. “We don’t have paparazzi and you see our superstars at the mall, like every weekend. It’s kind of chill.” Travelling overseas is like stepping into a parallel universe. “It feels like a movie — the fact that people care about every little thing I do and say,” she says.
The rocket-speed of her rise has forced her to figure out fame in real time, whether it’s fine-tuning her image or navigating the rumour mill. “I’m kind of figuring it out in front of the world,” she says. “There are definitely some things where I think, ‘Why did I do that?’ And for a while, I felt a way about it, because imagine everybody seeing your rough drafts. But now it’s cool — my Tygers [her fandom name] are seeing me grow for real. They’re gonna see all the mistakes and that’s okay.”
It’s a state of Zen acceptance that’s even seeped into how she deals with prying into her personal life, despite over-sharing going against her instincts. Since the time of writing, online debate has resurfaced around Tyla’s use of the term “coloured” to describe herself, a word commonly used in South Africa for mixed-race people, but regarded as offensive elsewhere. The discussion first gained attention in 2023 after she declined to address the subject during an interview. She later clarified on social media: “I don’t expect to be identified as Coloured outside of [South Africa] by anyone not comfortable doing so because I understand the weight of that word outside [South Africa]. But to close this conversation, I’m both Coloured in South Africa and a Black woman.”
I didn’t want everyone knowing my business. But you have to embrace it to have fun
“I’ve always been a private person — I didn’t want everyone knowing my business,” she says, before another shrug. “But I’ve gotten used to it over time. I realised that you have to embrace it in order to have the most fun.”
What does embracing it actually look like? Screaming over Grammy nominations in hotel rooms with her childhood best friend. Receiving DMs from legends like Janet Jackson. Ripping her custom Balmain gown made of sand at the Met Gala and turning it into a mini on the spot. Partying at London cabaret club The Box with Zara Larsson (“I thought, okay, we’re going to see some Cirque du Soleil. Why did I see someone’s bumhole?”). In fact: partying everywhere.
The best nights out, she insists, are still back home in Johannesburg, at her favourite clubs in the township Soweto: Zone 6, PianoHub and Konka. Or in Ghana during December, where the pre-Christmas party season has become so legendary it’s now nicknamed “Detty December”. “I will never forget that,” she says. “We were literally just in the streets, walking to this club, there’s sand on the floor…” Tyla flashes a wicked grin. “I just love chaos.” The next stop on her chaos tour is All Points East on bank holiday weekend, where she’ll join fellow pop It girls Raye, Doechii and Jade on one of the year’s most-hyped festival line-ups. It’ll be Tyla’s first-ever British festival and expectations are high. “From videos of London festivals, the crowd always seems lit,” she says. “I know it’s going to be fire.” Will she stick around for Notting Hill Carnival the next day? She glances towards her team — who watch our interview intently— flashing a sly smile, as if silently asking how much she’s allowed to reveal. Finally, she lands on a suitably vague but tantalising answer: “I’m there. For sure.”
Not before doing a recce of London’s nightlife scene tonight, though. After our interview, Tyla will launch into an industry mixtape listening party, then a fan one, before ending the night with a blowout at Phonox in Brixton. Within 24 hours, the highlights are all over social media: pap shots of her stepping off a double-decker party bus in a neon-green bra and cut-off denim shorts; videos of the crowd screaming as she enters the club.
But make no mistake, the We Wanna Party attitude isn’t just about living it up. It’s a full-blown philosophy — an unapologetic pursuit of joy that seeps into everything Tyla does, whether she’s performing to 50,000 people in Victoria Park or eating snacks and scrolling TikTok in bed. “Every moment I can get to enjoy, I’ve been taking it,” she says, suddenly serious. “I want to have a fun life. What’s the point if you’re not doing that?”
Tyla plays All Points East, Victoria Park, August 23; allpointseastfestival.com
