10
10
Interview with Tyla, the R’n’B princess spotted at the Jean Paul Gaultier show
Endorsed by Cardi B, Beyoncé and Rosalía, South African singer Tyla follows in the swaying footsteps of Rihanna and Aaliyah. With her sculptural beauty, sublime R’n’B voice reminiscent of the highest priestesses of the genre from the 2000s, and her voluptuous, addictive South African amapiano sounds blending jazz and deep house, the artist embodies the vital energy of her home country. And it is no coincidence, since Tyla wants to represent the soul of South Africa abroad. As the young artist received her second Grammy Award in February 2026, let’s take a look back on our Parisian interview with a rising star who has only just started to shine and to invite languid closeness on dance floors.
Photographs by Sofia Sanchez & Mauro Mongiello,
Styling by Edem Dossou,
Interview by Violaine Schütz.
Published on 16 February 2026. Updated on 10 March 2026.
A young singer already crowned with two Grammy Awards
Throwback to 2005. Rapper and president of the prestigious record label Def Jam Recordings, Jay-Z, asks to meet an unknown young artist from Barbados, named Rihanna, for an audition after hearing demo recordings of her songs. She wears simple white jeans and a green blouse and dances shyly as she sings. Yet, her charisma and talent are undeniable.
Impressed both by her moving rendition of Whitney Houston’s For the Love of You and by the original track Pon de Replay, Beyoncé’s husband signed Rihanna to a six-album contract with Def Jam on the very day of that now-famous audition. If there is one lesson to draw from this legendary story, it is that you can come from a place far removed from the American star system and become one of the biggest global stars.
It is no coincidence that Tyla, 24, cites Rihanna as one of her influences in our interview. Nor that she opened for the star’s ex-boyfriend, Chris Brown, in 2025. Just like the iconic Rihanna opened a window onto Barbadian culture, Tyla wants to shine a light on her own country. “I’d like all eyes to turn toward African artists. We need more attention.” Determined and talented, the young singer from Johannesburg seems well on her way to making that happen.
Kim Kardashian supports her
As Rihanna’s phenomenal success has shown, you can come from a place far removed from the American entertainment industry and become one of the biggest stars in the world. A model and a major source of inspiration for the young singer from Johannesburg. Since her debut single Getting Late, released in 2019 and now boasting billions of streams, Tyla’s glow has kept growing over time.
A performance at a Dolce & Gabbana show in Milan, appearances at the Chanel Fall/Winter 2025–2026 show, at the Jean Paul Gaultier Fall/Winter 2026-2027 show in Paris and at the Met Gala wearing Balmain in 2024 and Jacquemus in 2025, the release of Overdue (2021), featured on the soundtrack of the Netflix series Blood & Water, joining a major label, Epic Records, and Kim Kardashian posting a photo of her on Instagram… Tyla is the new rising pop star.
Memorable appearances at the Chanel show and the Met Gala
Everything accelerated when Tyla released her hit song Water (2023). It reached 313 million views on YouTube and became a TikTok challenge. Since then, she has been followed on Instagram by Rosalía, featured in an Instagram story by Cardi B, and remixed by Travis Scott.
Other achievements? Barack Obama added one of her tracks to his playlist, Beyoncé sent her flowers, both literally and figuratively, and she won the award for Best African Music Performance at the 66th Grammy Awards in February 2024. In 2026, she won another Grammy Award for her track PUSH 2 START. She is also the youngest African artist ever to receive a Grammy.
Although she had to cancel her tour and her Coachella show due to an injury, her rise is far from over. Last March 2024, Tyla unveiled her eponymous debut album. This highly-anticipated project, following the Water phenomenon, features equally infectious tracks, such as On and On, Truth or Dare, and Butterflies, along with collaborations with Tems, Gunna, Becky G and Travis Scott.
After the release of her acclaimed first album in March 2024, the artist shared on Instagram the cover of a deluxe version of the same project, released in October 2024. Her fingers are holding a garden hose and her wet hair hides her face… The reference to the hit Water is clear. Our only hope is that the three new tracks included on this reissue live up to expectations…
Tyla’s debut in the music industry
It only took a handful of singles – Getting Late, Overdue, Been Thinking, To Last – and a few swaying dance moves on TikTok for all eyes to turn to her beautiful face and her sensual tone. Yet, nothing seemed to predestine her to such success, as Tyla told Numéro in Paris. “I was born and raised in Johannesburg, in a big family of five children. My dad is an accountant and my mom doesn’t really work, but she’s tried just about every job out there. She’s very creative. She makes jewelry, candles… I’m very close to my siblings. We were all born about a year apart. My parents were very strict, so we often stayed at home, which basically forced us to become best friends.”
As she speaks about her joyful childhood, one can almost picture it… A canvas filled with bright colors, shouts and laughter. “My siblings and I were very loud,” she continues. “We were allowed to go to the corner store from time to time with our cousins. Sometimes my mom would ask us to help her sell old clothes. We’d pick a random street corner, lay a blanket on the ground and call out to people to buy them. We’d also go where taxis parked to sell fat cakes, also known as ‘magwinya’, which are African pastries. We were really my mom’s sales team [laughs]. We weren’t rich, but I loved my childhood!”
Following in Rihanna’s footsteps
As a child, Tyla wrote songs for Father’s and Mother’s Days. As a teenager, she would freestyle over instrumentals of famous tracks she found on YouTube, making up lyrics about boys she had crushes on. Believing in her lucky star, she eventually dared to post them on Instagram and send direct messages to stars like Rihanna, Drake and DJ Khaled, while still in high school.
Although none of them replied, it was through those posts that the man who is still her manager today noticed her. That’s when the fairy tale began. Every weekend, the singer would record music in the studio with her best friend, with whom she would joke around between takes.
“I’ve always felt like I was meant to be an artist.” — Tyla
While Tyla’s parents played a lot of music at home, especially Michael Jackson, they were far from imagining an artistic career for their daughter. Like many people around them, they feared that her dream might fizzle out.
Tyla even considered studying mining engineering before her passion caught up with her. “I’ve always felt like I was meant to be an artist. Singing and writing songs were the only things I cared about when I was a kid. My first song was about a boy, my crush at school. It’s always about a boy… It was really terrible. No one ever heard it. I even tore the page out of my diary so no one would find it.”
A gifted dancer on stage and in her music videos, Tyla is also a born performer. “In front of my family or my classmates, I already loved putting on small performances. I would enter participate in any competition at school. I loved being in front of a camera, making videos, taking pictures.”
Tyla, a rising star of amapiano and R’n’B
Her ultra-sexy videos have millions of views and her silky voice reminds us of great 2000s R’n’B stars, like Aaliyah to Ciara. However, they are not the only reasons behind the anticipation surrounding Tyla. Her deep attachment to her roots also plays a major role. According to Pitchfork, she is the “princess of amapiano,” a hypnotic South African musical genre. Indeed, the artist blends pop and R’n’B music with amapiano. She even created her own term to define her sound – “popiano.”
Amapiano is a musical style that fuses deep house, jazz, lounge sounds and the soul of gospel. Its tracks, created in a DIY spirit using affordable software, belong to the streets, townships and sweaty clubs. The word comes from a Zulu term meaning “the pianos,” and its smooth, slow tempo plunges listeners into a kind of trance, inviting swaying hips and intimate encounters on the dance floor. Like its Nigerian cousin ‘afrobeats’, this “post-apartheid” genre was born in 2012 and is now setting the world on fire.
“I’m very proud of where I come from and of my South African culture. I want to represent it all over the world.” — Tyla
While other artists, such as Jorja Smith and Major Lazer, have incorporated hints of amapiano into their songs, this sound tells the story of its country of origin. It owes much to kwaito, another house-derived genre that emerged in Soweto after apartheid, in the 1990s, when Nelson Mandela became South Africa’s first democratically elected Black president.
Kwaito is the soundtrack of a people, music that expresses newfound freedom of speech and energy. “Amapiano is truly unique to South Africa,” Tyla explains. “Here, we listen to a lot of house, jazz, kwaito, and amapiano that came out of those genres. You can recognize amapiano by its very powerful, percussive bass lines and the ‘log drums.’ These are wooden drums with a warm sound recreated electronically with a software. Everyone loves that sounds in my country. You can hear them everywhere, in the streets, in shops, on public transports. But the real masterminds are the DJs, like DJ Maphorisa, who produce and play the music in clubs. All the amapiano artists, like the singer Sha Sha or the rapper Nasty C, form one big family. We all know each other and play in the same clubs.”
The global hype surrounding amapiano, which has made its way into cutting-edge Parisian clubs since Covid, it not to displease Tyla. “I’m happy that this genre is now traveling and finding success elsewhere, because we’ve been listening to this music and dancing to it for years. As long as artists who aren’t from South Africa and who embrace it know where it comes from, I’m fine with that.”
Tyla’s breakthrough with the single Water
The artist also emphasizes how proud she is to represent South African sounds abroad. “As I’m very proud of where I come from and of my culture, I want to represent it all over the world. I grew up listening to pop and R’n’B. I’m a fan of Aaliyah, Rihanna, Beyoncé, Boyz II Men and Brian McKnight. They all had an influence on me. But I wanted to add my ‘African touch’ and incorporate amapiano and afrobeats sounds into my melodies.”
In her music videos, Tyla is deeply committed to paying tribute to her roots, as she shared with Numéro: “I wanted to shoot the video for my song Been Thinking in my country so that the authentic dance moves from here would be part of it. Because people who aren’t from South Africa can learn the moves, but the vibe will be different.”
Thanks to her hits, in particular Water, Tyla has already fulfilled many of her dreams. Yet, she fantasizes about a duet with R’n’B singer Doja Cat. She has met leading figures, such as H.E.R. and SZA, and has been able to travel around the world. Sitting in front of us with stars in her eyes, Tyla can hardly believe she is in Paris. She will have to get used to it, because it is just starting for the South African rising star, who released her latest hit, Chanel, in 2025.
Chanel (2025) by Tyla, available now.
