One international hit and a Grammy Award later, the wait has finally culminated in the advent of arguably one of 2024’s long-awaited albums. Tyla “Tyla” Seethal has released her self-titled debut studio album, Tyla, building from her EP of the same name released late last year. The 38-minute project features production by Sammy Soso, Sir Nolan, and Keay, among others.
Tyla is a fourteen-track LP that consists of sprawling influences such as dancehall, pop, afrohouse, and R&B, all supporting the functional sonic nucleus of amapiano, which provides the dominating personality of the album. With an all-star guest list that includes American rappers Travis Scott and Gunna as well as Grammy-winning Naija canary Tems, Tyla remains Seethal’s show, with brevity being the order of individual songs, preventing Tyla from erring by saying too much or coming up short by being stingy with her songwriting.
The thematic scope of the Jozi star’s maiden offering encompasses the dichotomous nature of love, the experience of sexual expression, the ever-switching dynamics of courtship and dating, and the celebration of diligence and hard-won success. The songbird manages, in a space of just over half an hour, to wrap the gamut of themes in consummate feminine energy as she continues to fill up the mould of her womanhood.
Some of the highs in the album come as a result of experimentation, such as with “Jump” alongside Gunna and Skillibeng, a tropical dancehall song in which Tyla, in her onomatopoeic playfulness and Caribbean syllable-bending, conjures up the ghost of Rihanna on “Man Down”. She recreates the exotic mood on the Becky G-assisted single “On and On”, stretching her musicality; it’s in moments like these that Tyla’s full palette seems endless, almost as if she’s holding back and pulling no punches simultaneously.
Seethal doesn’t lean too much on her singing abilities; if anything, she bolsters her voice with mood switches aided by tailor-made production that moves her more and more away from the pigeonhole of being a standard pop star. Whether she’s lamenting over a lover atop melancholic guitars reminsicent of Nico & Vinz’s “Am I Wrong?” (“Priorities”) or choosing herself and self-worth (“No. 1”) over a clubbish amapiano log drum, Tyla does not neglect the importance of atmospheric musicianship in the life and entertainment value of the album.
And so the longitudinal section of Tyla’s debut reveals two primary moods, as a result, but they can’t necessarily be halved in perfect symmetry, which is the album’s sole jarring fault. Nevertheless, there’s enough consistency in subject matter and beat selection to gloss over some of the finer missteps. But it’s Tyla’s first go, so it’s more than excusable.
Tyla’s first is a uniform opus consistent with her time, vocal register, and the sexual bandwidth she posited on her global breakout hit “Water”. Neither forced nor underdone, one unfamiliar with her music would guess that she’s been making music for years, with this album being her fourth given the sense of ease she evinces with every passing song. Considering the pressure of being a Grammy winner who’s only now just dropped an album, Tyla is a sure-footed debut of a woman who understands her strengths enough to exploit them but knows how to finesse her craft without overplaying it to the point of cloying exhaustion.
