Tyla plays two nights at O2 Academy Brixton, Thursday 15 and Friday 16 October 2026, on The A*POP World Tour behind her second album.
Tyla Laura Seethal was born in Johannesburg in 2002, the third of five children, and signed to a major label at nineteen. “Water” did the rest: it put a South African solo artist on the American singles chart for the first time in fifty-five years and won the first Grammy ever given for Best African Music Performance. She was twenty-two.
What she makes is amapiano crossed with pop — the log-drum bass and shuffling percussion of the South African style under melodies built for radio — and the coinage that stuck for it is popiano. The self-titled debut followed in 2024 and an EP, WWP, in 2025. The dancing is not incidental: she moves like the choreography came first and the song was written to fit it, so the live show matters more here than it does for most singers of her generation. She signed at nineteen, released the debut at twenty-two, and has had almost no period of obscurity to learn in public, which makes the second album the first real test of the writing.
A*POP is the second album and the tour carries its name. She plays O2 Academy Brixton on Thursday 15 and Friday 16 October 2026, two nights in a room that holds under five thousand, which is already the last time she will play London at that size.