Do we like Tyla?
Our score: 8 out of 10. Nothing harmful in her own words or acts, a dropped lawsuit that never accused her of wrongdoing, and a funded scholarship for women in music; the thin spot is how little she says on hard issues.
Tyla (Tyla Laura Seethal) is the Johannesburg pop star who took amapiano-flavoured R&B global with 'Water' in 2023. That song made her one of the biggest African artists on the planet, and she has since added a second Grammy and a sophomore album, A*Pop, in 2026.
Her first big stoush wasn't a scandal so much as a label fight. She called herself 'Coloured' in the South African sense, and American audiences read the word through their own history. She replied in 2024 that she had never denied her Blackness, and later coverage has her explaining she is both Coloured and a Black woman. It's a clash of vocabularies rather than anything harmful.
That row flared again in 2025 when Tiwa Savage apologised to Americans on Tyla's behalf, which went down badly in South Africa. Tyla appeared to reply with a 'sorry, not sorry' line on stage at Global Citizen, though that is how coverage read it, not a statement from her. Cardi B had already told critics to ease off the online pile-on.
On the harm test, there's honestly not much to find. We found no anti-LGBTQ+, anti-woman or climate-denial comments from her, and no projects with people who push that stuff. The one criticism is silence: after the Lagos date was dropped, a social commentator called for a boycott, saying she hadn't spoken about attacks on migrants. A defender argued she shouldn't be blamed for South Africa's immigration crisis.
The legal drama wasn't about her conduct. Two songwriters sued over 'Water' royalties in 2025, naming her, her producer and Sony. The suit never accused her of wrongdoing, and in February 2026 the claimants withdrew their claims against her without any settlement being paid.
The good stuff is concrete. Her That Girl Music Scholarship, with Sony Music and the Institute of International Education, gives ten women studying music or the arts $5,000 each, six in the US and four in South Africa, based on merit and financial need. She also talks up African artists, saying she wants all eyes turned toward them.