South African singer Tyla brings The APop World Tour* to Glasgow following a remarkable rise that has placed her among the most internationally visible African pop performers of her generation.
The tour supports her second studio album, APop*, with O2 Academy Glasgow confirming a Sunday night performance featuring material from the new record.
Tyla’s international breakthrough came with Water, a track that carried elements of South African amapiano into global pop and R&B.
Its success led to a historic moment at the 2024 Grammy Awards, where Tyla became the first winner of the newly created Best African Music Performance award.
That achievement reflected something much larger happening in popular music.
African artists and African-created sounds have become increasingly prominent internationally, with genres including Afrobeats and amapiano moving from local and regional scenes onto festival stages, charts and dancefloors around the world.
Amapiano itself grew in South Africa, developing a distinctive approach to house music built around deep bass, keyboards, percussion and the characteristic log-drum sound.
Tyla has helped introduce elements of that musical language to audiences who might previously have had little exposure to contemporary South African pop culture.
Her success also demonstrates why Black History Month need not focus exclusively on the past.
Black cultural history is still being created.
African musicians today are influencing fashion, dance, production and popular music just as earlier generations of Black artists transformed jazz, reggae, soul and hip-hop.
Tyla’s Glasgow show provides an opportunity to experience that story while it is still unfolding.
With pop, R&B, amapiano influences and a growing catalogue of global hits, The APop World Tour* should be one of Glasgow’s biggest contemporary African music events of October.
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