Tyla Emphasizes African Music's Diversity in MTV VMAs Speech

In her acceptance speech, Tyla described the win as “special but also bittersweet.” Her comments were in relation to the tendency of western award bodies to group all African artists under the Afrobeats umbrella. “Even though Afrobeats has run things and opened doors for us, African music is so diverse,” Tyla said.

It plays into the now long-running controversy of African artists distancing themselves from the Afrobeats tag. For more specificity, Tyla added in her speech that she represents amapiano. While the validity of her chosen genre is debatable, considering the more pop-friendly overtures in her music, she has clearly hit on a topic that’s consistently divisive.

“I come from South Africa and I represent amapiano and my culture,” she said, adding shoutouts to Tems, Ayra Starr, Burna Boy, and other artists nominated in the category.

Perhaps the most striking part of Tyla’s acceptance speech, and what should be amplified the most, was in her first sentence: “The global impact that ‘Water’ had just proves that African music can be pop music too.”

Watch her speech below: