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Tyla Speaks Out On Categorizing All African Music As Afrobeats

Tyla‘s once again standing up for African artists, their music, and the world’s perception of them.

During her acceptance speech at the 2024 MTV Video Music Awards for Best Afrobeats, the “Water” singer spoke up about how “diverse” African music is and how it all shouldn’t be categorized as afrobeats.

“This is such a big moment for Africa, for African music. The global impact that ‘Water’ has had on the world just proves that African music can be pop music, too,” she expressed. “Yes! This is just so special, but also bittersweet because I know there’s a tendency to group all African artists under afrobeats. It’s a thing, and even though afrobeats has run things and has opened so many doors for us, African music is so diverse.”

Tyla accepts her #VMA: "The global impact that 'Water' has had on the world just proves that African music can be pop music too…I know there's a tendency to group all African artists under Afrobeats. It's a thing, and even though Afrobeats has run things and has opened so many… pic.twitter.com/5hNV3PngHz
— Variety (@Variety) September 12, 2024

The Grammy winner continued, “It’s more than just Afrobeats. I come from South Africa. I represent amapiano. I represent my culture […] Africa to the world!” She once described her hit record, “Water” as the “sound of Africa,” explaining to Rolling Stone, “It’s not only for Africa, but it’s for the world […] It’s literally me bring Africa to the world.”

This VMA win was briefly overshadowed by a video clip of her handing her Moonman to presenters, Halle Bailey and Lil Nas X. Some viewers thought Tyla was being shady about asking one of them to hold the trophy while she gave her acceptance speech. She was heard saying, “I’m not strong enough, please hold it for me. Thank you, I’m sorry.” However, both Bailey and Tyla took to X to dismiss the backlash.

“Y’all make everything weird… I was not asking my girl Halle… We just girls. STFU I WON A VMAAAA,” Tyla tweeted. Bailey responded to the aforementioned tweet by writing, “Exactly. love u babes congrats.”