REVIEW | Tyla’s A*POP turns Johannesburg nostalgia into global pop

Tyla’s sophomore album A*POP draws on 2010s South African club and fashion culture. Picture: Supplied Tyla’s A*POP is a sparkling declaration of pop sovereignty. And the young star made her declaration by dragging the dancefloor pulse of 2010s South Africa into the global spotlight.

The 24 July release finds the 24-year-old South African star doubling down on her Popiano signature (a sleek, rhythmic fusion of polished pop, R&B sensuality and amapiano’s log-drum bounce) while weaving in deeper house, kwaito echoes and straight-up nostalgic South African club energy. South Africans listening to A*POP have been flooding timelines and group chats with a very specific flavour of recognition. It sounds, they say, like slipping on peep-toe platform heels before a night out, like squeezing into a bandage dress that hugs every curve with confident swagger, like raiding Jay Jays for the perfect graphic tee or coloured skinny jeans combo that defined early-2010s youth fashion in malls across the country.

It evokes sweaty, euphoric nights at Vacca Matta in Montecasino-Fourways’ legendary club where the country’s biggest dance hits thumped until the early hours, bodies moving in unison under lights that made everything feel possible. We’ve long-been accused of leaving the rest of the world out of our conversations with our effortless code and language switching but it can’t be helped when we have such specific cultural shorthand for a very particular era in modern South African life.A*POP feels like the late 2000s into the early-to-mid 2010s, when post-apartheid optimism still crackled, the malls were temples of aspiration, local fashion retail like Jay Jays brought international trends home at accessible prices and clubs like Roxxys, Taboo and Vacca Matta pulsed as epicentres of black and coloured youth culture. At this point in her career, Tyla embodies the unapologetic glamour and communal joy of this era.

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Tracks like the Liquideep-samplingFairytaleor the Zara Larsson collabShe Did It Again(with its Y2K-tinged bounce) andMr Nonchalantfeel like sonic time machines, updated with today’s production sheen but rooted in the sounds that raised a generation. My only critique lies in how short her songs often are. This feels like a hallmark of music discovery in the TikTok generation.

What makes A*POP a respectable swing – and culturally significant project – is that Tyla refused the path of least resistance. In an industry that often rewards African artists who sand down their edges to fit neatly into American mainstream pop, she chose the opposite: she put her stamp on the sound. Instead of diluting amapiano or house into generic Americanised EDM drops, she centres them.

The log drums, the piano stabs, the deep basslines, the multilingual flair and the soulful vocal runs all stay front and centre. Features lean heavily toward fellow South African and African voices (MaWhoo, Babalwa M and others), keeping the project anchored in community even as it courts worldwide playlists.

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