Opinion: Afrobeats or Amapiano - What's the Best Description for Tyla's Music?

As expected, some of Tyla’s speech rubbed some people online the wrong way, especially in how she strongly hinted at not being comfortable with being tagged as an Afrobeats artist. To be clear, Tyla’s VMAs speech was gracious, quite nuanced and striking. “There’s a tendency to group all African artists under Afrobeats, but even though Afrobeats has run things and opened doors for us, African music is so diverse.”

Tyla is not the first artist with such sentiments — some Nigerian artists have even flat-out denounced the term Afrobeats. Within the total context, what’s perhaps more pressing is whether Tyla’s assertion that she “represent[s] amapiano” holds up, amidst the widely held notion her music is Afrobeats.

Amapiano is distinct; you know it immediately when you hear it. The obvious element is the log drum, but ‘piano is a composite sound; an alchemy of several distinct South African styles of music, including but not limited to deep house, folk music, jazz and soul. It’s incredibly malleable, adopted by hip-hop and R&B artists, and it also has a multitude of dimensions, from Bacardi-influenced styles to a wide spectrum that can be more soulful, jazzy (Private School ‘Piano), dance-y, and everything in-between.

Even with all this range, again, you know amapiano when you hear it. It’s not hyperbolic to deem it the most influential genre of the 2020s in African music, and that has led to its wide adoption and co-opting across the continent and beyond. The log drum and its applications, especially, have been extensively adapted in Nigerian pop music, to the point where there have been part-jovial, part-sinister conversations, often started by Nigerians online, on which country has amplified the growing global reach of amapiano more.

Tyla is caught somewhere between, being from the country that originated and continues to evolve amapiano, and making music that can’t be strictly classified as ‘piano. “Getting Late,” the debut single that initially garnered Tyla attention, has been described as “pop-piano” by both the singer and the song’s producerKooldrink. According to Tyla, the idea and execution was to make a “poppy” iteration of amapiano to fit her wide variety of interests and influences, from R&B to Y2K pop music.

“There will be more pop-piano songs, there will be pop Afrobeats songs, dancehall, straight R&B maybe,” she said at the time “Getting Late” was popping off. “I just want to try as much as I can, because I literally grew up listening to everything and I truly enjoy almost every genre, and I don’t wanna be tied down to one, so you guys can be expecting a variety basically.”

For anyone who’s been observing the trend of artists denouncing or decrying the term Afrobeats, Tyla’s comments about making a variety of music sounds very familiar.

Which brings us (once again!) to the innate problem with Afrobeats as a nebulous, catchall term. Afrobeats is broad, in the sense that it technically houses every style of melodic music made by Nigerian and Ghanaian artists prominently. Artists like Burna Boy and Patoranking, with predominantly reggae and dancehall-influenced styles, are categorized by the global media as Afrobeats. That same tag is used for street-pop acts like Asake and Seyi Vibez, who have applied log drums and other amapiano elements in markedly different ways, as well as Ghanaian highlife-influenced singers King Promise and KiDi.

Pop-piano best captures Tyla’s music. Apart from the bouncy dance-pop fare on the early 2023 single, “Been Thinking,” the log drum is a prominent feature in the songs on her catalog, including her March-released self-titled debut album. The “ppp” part of the equation is in the mix of elements on the album, from R&B to dancehall. There’s a throughline between “Getting Late” and Tyla, a clear manifestation of the popstar that can bend and blend influences to her own vision.

However, her emphasis on amapiano might be laying it on too thick. Tyla being South African does count, but the presence of log drums on her songs doesn’t necessarily make her any more of a ‘piano artist than, say, Asake. Tyla’s songs don’t run as long as the average amapiano song, they don't have the lingual specificity associated with South African ‘piano, and they are generally too clean to be solely considered ‘piano.

It’s telling that the 2022 single “To Last” and her feature on “Ke Shy,” headlined by South African DJ/producer twin duo Major League DJz and dance music producer/DJ trio Major Lazer, are the most vivid amapiano songs in Tyla’s catalog and also her least popular songs. On Tyla, besides “To Last,” the only collaboration with a primarily amapiano producer is on the intro with Kelvin Momo, the Private School ‘Piano auteur known for winding, enveloping songs and albums. That intro is just shy of one minute.

Tyla is a pop artist, in the same way young superstars from Africa like Ayra Starr, Rema and more are pop artists. Pop itself has always been a catch-all term. In this era of streaming and easy access to all kinds of music, which has inevitably informed recent and future generations of artists, genres are an increasingly obsolete idea. It doesn’t mean that an artist’s style can’t be described; it’s that they won’t always fit into the neat boxes provided by terms like Afrobeats.

It’s not that Tyla should be expected to simply embrace being called an Afrobeats artist, but the frictionless quality of pop-piano fits the general perception of Afrobeats. Just as important is that Tyla’s popularity has been helped by the “Afrobeats to the World” push, with its emphasis on exporting African music outside the continent.

With its slick finish and catchy hooks, Tyla’s music is geared for a global audience. If she wins Best Afrobeats at the MTV EMAs, it won’t be undeserved — after all, there’s a separate Best African Category with non-Afrobeats nominees. It will merely underline the perception of her music within the context of African pop music and its current (over-)reliance on Western validation. When you appeal to the world within the context of a pre-existing narrative, it is almost impossible to control your narrative.