GRAMMY-winning singer Tyla has returned with her sophomore album, A*POP, making good on the promise of an industry-shaking superstar and somehow still marking another leap forward for 24-year-old South African artist.
LISTEN NOW: Audacy Check In with Tyla
A few days before the release, Tyla joined Brooke Morrison inside our Los Angeles studios to talk about her own evolution since first finding success, and the driving force behind A*POP.
“Everything feels different. Like, I feel different,” admits Tyla. “Everything I do is based on a feeling, so, I don't know, like it wasn't really intentional. I just didn't sing what didn't feel like me and I didn't make what didn't feel like me because I know listening to ‘A*POP,’ it feels exactly like how I feel right now. It's fine growing up in front of the world and letting the world see all these different versions of me, and it's just weird at times cause I'm like ‘damn, like you guys have seen me grow up,’ but it's also interesting to for me also to sometimes look back and see who I was and now who I'm becoming.”
“I've just gone through so many different experiences that have led me to be this girl that I am right now,” she adds. “I've just grown so much, a lot of things that mattered to me in the beginning don't matter as much now and vice versa, so it's interesting to see me becoming more myself.”
That “feeling” has guided Tyla well, earning her 2 GRAMMY Awards from her debut album and already racking up millions of listens and views on A*POP lead singles like “CHANEL” and “IS IT.”
“I base everything on feeling. It's kinda weird, it's like a superpower, but like, girl, like when I hear a song, when I hear a beat, when I hear a lyric, like it rings in me when it feels right.”
“I can't explain it, but I just know when something is for me and when it's just not. It could be a hit song, but if it's not for me, I just, I don't even pay mind to it.”
The success and support that Tyla has found in her young career has helped her to feel “limitless,” and find purpose beyond the Pop. “I'm literally a girl from South Africa, like, this does not happen ever and I got two GRAMMYs of one album and all these crazy things and I don't like bringing it up cause I'm like, you know, but it's just kinda limitless. As humans, we're just so limitless and It's just exciting to share that feeling with people.”
To hear more about the making of A*POP and the evolution of Tyla, check out the full Audacy Check In above.
The sophomore album from Tyla is now available everywhere
The sophomore album from Tyla is now available everywhere
