On Wednesday, Sept. 11, the 2024 MTV Video Music Awards took place in New York. One of the big winners of the night was Tyla, who took the award for Best Afrobeats for her iconic viral track “Water.” During Tyla’s VMAs acceptance speech, she got real about her South African roots, and the diversity within African music that isn’t fully represented just yet.
Tyla took home her first Moon Person for Afrobeats in its second year as a category. Up against nominees including Usher and Burna Boy, she took the opportunity to pay homage to African music in her acceptance speech. She said the “global impact” that “Water” had on social media “proves that African music can be pop music, too.”
The Afrobeats category was only introduced at the VMAs one year prior, in 2023, making Tyla’s speech all the more important. She went on to personally shout out her fellow nominees Tems, Ayra Starr, Lojay, and Burna Boy before dishing out her final thanks.
Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images for MTV
Part of the buzz surrounding “Water” came thanks to the track’s accompanying viral dance challenge. TikTok notably fueled its popularity, with many creators, artists, and celebrities alike taking part in the “Water” challenge that resulted from a video of Tyla pouring water on herself while dancing along to the song.
Notably, the VMAs weren’t the first time Tyla took the opportunity to speak about the topic. During her acceptance speech at the Billboard R&B No. 1 event on Sept. 8 (three days before she took home her first VMA), she was awarded the Global Icon Award and said, “Thank you to everyone who cares to learn about other cultures and other styles of music and truly appreciates it and loves it for what it is.”
Photo by Arturo Holmes/Getty ImagesHeran Mamo, Billboard’s senior R&B, hip-hop, and Afrobeats writer commended Tyla for her strides in music. “She’s taken over the world with her signature popiano sound, performing her pop-infused take on her native South Africa’s Amapiano in the U.S., France, Portugal, Japan, South Korea, and more,” said Mamo. “She successfully transformed ‘Africa’s the world’ from a motto to her mission.”
It’s so important that Tyla took the time out of her career-high moment to address this discrepancy in the music industry, and it’s even more iconic that she got to do it on a stage as big as the VMAs.
