The South African Grammy-winning artiste, Tyla has become Africa’s most popular artist with stream numbers surpassing that of the Nigerian sensation Rema.
According to African Fact Zone, Tyla now boasts 30 million monthly Spotify listeners, with her hit song “Water,” gaining over 499 million streams.
They also noted that her album is charting in 140 countries on Apple Music. Currently, it has peaked at number 4 in the UK and no. 6 in the USA, with the potential to go even higher, and has reached the Top 10 in over 70 countries on Apple Music.
Her debut album has also received positive reviews, with the entertainment platform Pulse, noting that the 14-track album cuts across different versions of herself including love, desire, passion, and purpose.
“Tyla achieves a fine balance of South African and Nigerian elements for her album with Amapiano log drum which has found its way to Nigeria and dominated the soundscape serving as the common denominator,” the review reads partly.
Her hit song, Water, is such a globally recognized track that it not only won her the Grammy for Best African Music Performance, but the remix with Travis Scott also hit a million views on YouTube within the first 24 hours of its release. It currently sits at 5 million views, barely a week in.
The original video released 5 months ago, now has 145 million views on YouTube.
Tyla’s streaming numbers and international prominence are fast making her the continent’s top artiste especially considering that she overtook Rema on Spotify who currently has 29,720,809 monthly listeners compared to her 30,134,227.
For context, 2 of Africa’s biggest artists, Burnaboy and Davido, both have 16,353,793 and 8,142,167 respectively. – Business Insider (Africa)
