Costume, earrings, Dolce & Gabbana Alta Moda.
The evening earlier than the Opening Ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics, Tyla was unusually calm. The South African singer was about to provide a shock efficiency on the Prelude to the Olympics, held on the Fondation Louis Vuitton and attended by celebrities from Zendaya to LeBron James. “I used to be requested to do the occasion by Pharrell [Williams, Louis Vuitton Men’s creative director], so it was insane—an on the spot ‘Sure,’” she says. “Generally I’m nervous, like I’m actually nervous.” However this time, Tyla appeared ahead to the present your complete day. She wearing an oversize black and yellow jersey from Louis Vuitton Males’s yet-to-be-released spring 2025 assortment, over spandex shorts and thigh-high boots, and carried out 4 songs, together with her runaway hit “Water.” “I felt sizzling,” she says with a smile. “After I obtained on, I knew it was going to be that sort of crowd: skilled, don’t dance a lot. However regardless, I had a lot enjoyable.” Tyla teased the VIP viewers as she sang: “I even referred to as them out onstage like, ‘You guys are stiff.’”
Days earlier than, Tyla had been in London, the place she was in rehearsal for upcoming reveals—together with Chicago’s Lollapalooza, her first massive music competition in america—and making each a deluxe album of her self-titled debut EP and new music. At 22, she has had one of many quickest, most explosive rises in music—a real African pop star with a following that spans a lot of the world. “I simply began seeing stars,” Ezekiel Lewis, president of Tyla’s label, Epic Data, says of first seeing a video of her performing. “It was a grand alternative to assist collaborate and make one thing really authentic.”
Costume, Dior Haute Couture.
Simply a few years in the past, the singer, born Tyla Laura Seethal, was in highschool in her hometown, the sprawling, dynamic metropolis of Johannesburg, the place she grew up on the east facet. As a bit of lady, she posted movies of herself masking pop songs by the likes of Justin Bieber. When she began making music in highschool, she experimented by mixing genres from R&B to pop together with her foremost love: amapiano, South African home music. When she heard the log drums of the track “Iskhathi (Gonggong)” by Kwiish SA on the age of 14, she was seduced. “When amapiano would come on, we might see all people’s strikes simply change. Seeing the vitality of it…it felt so non secular,” she tells me. “I at all times needed to combine it with different kinds that I take pleasure in, like R&B and pop—and make it my very own.” It was irritating to observe her nation’s distinctive music, from amapiano to kwaito home, go unnoticed by the remainder of the world. “I felt it was so particular, and it wanted to be shared. I did my very own model of it in hopes of getting individuals to go deeper and uncover the opposite artists now we have and the origins of my sound.”
Robe, Armani Privé.
Parka gown, gloves, Balenciaga Couture 53RD Assortment.
Tyla’s household inspired her. Her mother, who was artistic and did every little thing from making jewellery and candles to promoting chocolate and actual property, advised her she may sing. Her aunt, an expert dancer, taught her find out how to stomach dance when she was small. And her grandmother advised her tales of her days in singing competitions, again when she was vying for cash and packets of cigarettes. “I used to be impressed. She would at all times push me. She’d make me sing a track 20 occasions till I obtained it proper,” Tyla says.
Tyla was precocious, and he or she knew she needed to be a pop star. She auditioned for all the varsity performs, however singing was her dream. “It’s one thing I at all times actually needed, for myself, and for Africa, and for the world. One thing completely different, one thing authentic,” she tells me. “I additionally simply needed to decorate up. I’m not at all times inspirational, guys!”
Bodysuit, Dior Haute Couture.
Although she now finds a few of the movies she uploaded to the web “cringey,” she noticed it as enjoyable then, an outlet for her creative impulses. When she began recording her personal music throughout her ultimate 12 months of highschool, it was onerous to get used to singing in a studio, however thrilling. “I heard myself on a track—I mentioned, ‘There’s no approach I’m not gonna do that.’ It felt like I used to be purported to do it. Although that track was not the very best,” she says, laughing. Her mother and father needed her to proceed her schooling after highschool, however ultimately they got here round. To today, Tyla sends her music first to the household group chat earlier than it’s launched anyplace else. On her mother and father’ first journey to america, Tyla gained a Grammy. “They got here backstage after I gained; my mother was crying. As a result of it’s so surreal,” she says.
Many issues have felt surreal, not least seeing her gently intoxicating single “Water” turn into a world phenomenon, full with its personal viral hip-rolling dance, a play on South Africa’s Bacardi dance. (In the course of the holidays final 12 months, I used to be at a seashore occasion on Kenya’s coast as a crowd of individuals did it collectively.) Its launch has been adopted by collaborations with Summer season Walker (a “Women Want Love” remix), Tems (“No.1”), and rapper Travis Scott on the “Water” remix. “Initially we weren’t going to have a remix, however after Travis requested, I used to be like, ‘Duh,’” Tyla says. “At any time when I get individuals mentioning that they need to collab, and it’s those that I’ve listened to all my life and been a fan of—once more, I simply message the household group chat. I get so genuinely excited,” she says. “It’s like, ‘Sure—like, sure, sure, sure.’”
Bodysuit, skirt, Schiaparelli Haute Couture.
Cape, bodysuit, Chanel Haute Couture.
The present embrace of African cultures by American artists and listeners has been speedy and significant. I keep in mind smiling in disbelief after I first heard Nigerian star Burna Boy on Sizzling 97 years in the past in New York; in 2023, he turned the primary African artist to promote out a U.S. stadium. “I heard it wasn’t cool to be African in America, and I didn’t actually know till I began being on social media at school,” Tyla says. She’d go stay solely to typically be met with derogatory names. “Then I spotted it [being African] wasn’t welcome. I like that now persons are displaying extra love and being extra open to it and studying extra about it. And simply having fun with the music.
Prime, skirt, earring, Jean Paul Gaultier Haute Couture by Nicolas Di Felice.
Tyla’s first single, the bouncy, flirty “Getting Late,” in 2019, was her preliminary strive at what she calls “popiano,” her mix of amapiano and pop. She gained followers in South Africa in 2020 with the video for “Getting Late,” which now has greater than 10 million views on YouTube. However her rise throughout the lead-up to her debut album, Tyla, appeared to occur concurrently across the African continent, america, and different elements of the world. Earlier than the album dropped in March, Tyla had turn into the primary South African solo artist to succeed in the Billboard Sizzling 100 because the legendary Hugh Masekela, 55 years earlier, and the primary winner of the brand new Grammy class Greatest African Music Efficiency for “Water.” To not point out starring in her first massive vogue marketing campaign, for Hole.
The day after her Paris set, she is serene and confident on the cowl shoot for this journal, surrounded by stylists, managers, publicists, and assistants. She speaks softly however firmly in her Johannesburg accent as she asks the identical query all through the day: “However does it appear to be me?” She later tells me, after shooing her workforce out of the dressing room, that there’s a cause she’s so hands-on. “I’m very concerned in every little thing that I do: my sound, my picture, what I put on, what I appear to be. It does matter, and it does matter that it goes with how I’m feeling, and it ties in with the music. As a result of on the finish of the day, I’m an artist. I mannequin, however it’s on the facet.”
Coat, Armani Privé.
After the shoot wraps, Tyla will get right into a van, curling up on the again seat in a grey T-shirt and sheer tights and scrolling on her cellphone. After we get again to her lodge, we head to a top-floor lounge and unfold out on cushions, utilizing towels as blankets. Tyla continues to be recovering from a again damage, and needed to lie down after being on her toes all day. Modeling felt “awkward” to her at first. “However I spotted that if there’s a nasty shot, we’ll get one. I’m extra snug making errors,” she says, including that that method applies to her music, too: “Having the ability to simply go within the sales space, sing a bunch of melodies—and a few of them come out dangerous, a few of them are superb. Simply being open to not being good on a regular basis.” Tyla desires individuals who hearken to her music to really feel that it’s not “industrial, what we hear in all places,” and to listen to the presence of her tradition. One thing contemporary, not calculated.
Costume, earrings, Dolce & Gabbana Alta Moda.
“One other factor about South African music: There generally is a miserable track, however the beat simply makes you wanna dance. So I additionally like incorporating that in my stuff. When you’re crying, dance and shake your ass on the identical time,” she says with fun. At any time when she listens to the amapiano track “Healer Ntliziyo Yam,” as an example, she cries. “I do know what I like,” Tyla says. “I do know what I wanna appear to be. I do know what’s cool, particularly now. I belief my judgment, and yeah, I like collaborating with individuals and going outdoors of my consolation zone, however not too far off the place it seems like one thing I wouldn’t do. If I don’t prefer it, I’m not going to do it.”
Veil, Jean Paul Gaultier Haute Couture by Nicolas Di Felice.
Her “sweaty,” beachy type—brief skirts, mini shirts, and crop tops displaying her stomach ring—advanced from her time spent within the South African coastal metropolis of Durban, the place her mother and father are from. It’s heat and humid, and Tyla was normally on the seashore in a bikini. Her distressed, ripped seems got here from her first performances, when she couldn’t afford to purchase new outfits; she and her finest pal took garments and minimize them up. “It actually got here from us simply making it work,” she says. “Making sizzling outfits from no matter we had.”
When Tyla is in Johannesburg, she likes staying at residence to spend time together with her brother and sisters—her “finest mates”—and watching films. However when she does exit, she’s within the township of Soweto. “That’s the place the true events are,” she explains. “In lockdown, you weren’t actually allowed to have events, however there’d be these events the place they might allow us to in, after which they’d have to shut the doorways till the curfew ended. You’d have to remain in there till morning. And when police would come, we’d must be quiet, act like nothing’s taking place. Then the occasion would come again.” With a shrug, she provides, “South Africans simply love music.”
Corset gown, gloves, tights, Schiaparelli Haute Couture. Pumps, Christian Louboutin.
Reflecting on her wild 12 months, she says, “I do really feel like I’ve modified lots within the span of some months; individuals might not see it. I’m excited to see that in my subsequent album.” She describes that change as beginning to detach from what individuals say or take into consideration her, after feeling irritated at fixed comparisons to Rihanna and “I’m a Slave four U”-era Britney Spears. “Initially I used to care. Just lately I’ve simply been feeling, ‘They’re gonna say what they wanna say, and it doesn’t even matter as a result of I do know it’s not that,’” Tyla says. She posts much less, and typically deletes social media apps from her cellphone for per week at a time.
Cape, bra high, shorts, Dolce & Gabbana Alta Moda.
“This 12 months was me introducing myself. Subsequent 12 months I’m simply gonna have enjoyable,” she says. “Do no matter, put on no matter. I’m simply enjoying round lots, and bringing numerous my roots into my music. It’s nonetheless gonna be me, nonetheless sweaty vibes, however advanced.”
This story seems within the October 2024 concern of ELLE.
Alexis Okeowo, a workers author at the New Yorker, was named journalist of the 12 months by the Newswomen’s Membership of New York in 2020. Okeowo is writer of A Moonless, Starless Sky: Atypical Girls and Males Preventing Extremism in Africa, which obtained the 2018 PEN Open Guide Award, and of Blessings and Disasters: A Story of Alabama, which comes out in 2025.
