South Africa’s First: Tyla Wins Best Afrobeats Category in 2024 MTV VMAs
South African music star, Tyla, has won the Best Afrobeats category at the 2024 MTV Video Music Awards, winning for her hit single, “Water”.
This year’s edition held on Wednesday, September 11, at New York’s UBS Arena, with Taylor Swift leading the awards night with the most wins (7).
Tyla is the first South African to win a VMA. The music video of her award-winning hit song, Water, has garnered over 230 million views on YouTube and almost 800 million streams on Spotify.
Giveon (with Ayra Starr), Burna Boy, Chris Brown with Davido and Lojay, Tems, and Usher with Pheelz, were the other nominees in the Afrobeats category.
Accepting the award, she said, “Thank you so much. This is such a big moment for Africa, African music. The global impact that Water has had on the world just proves that African music can be pop music too.
“This is just so special, but also bittersweet, because I know there’s a tendency to group all African artists under Afrobeat. It’s a thing and even though Afrobeats have opened so many doors for us, African music is so diverse. It’s more than just Afrobeats.”
“I come from South Africa. I represent my culture. And I just want to shout out (to) all the Afrobeats artists in this category with me.”
In her speech, Tyla also mentioned African music global stars such as Tems, Ayra Starr, Lojay, Rema, Wizkid, and Burna Boy, as she stated: “Africa to the world.”
The Afrobeats category, which was first introduced to the VMAs in 2023, was won by Nigerian music star Rema and US star Selena Gomez, with their hit collabo, Calm down
