Fresh from a banging collaboration with Sabi Girl Ayra Starr, South African pop singer and dancer Tyla Laura Seethal, mononymously known as Tyla, has let loose another one for the culture. Titled “Water”, the crooning belle’s latest single is her third for the year, picking up from where she left off on “Been Thinking” and “Girl Next Door”.
It’s been four years since the Kooldrink-assisted “Getting Late” dropped, catapulting her career to enviable heights. And almost half a decade deep into the mainstream industry, Tyla has mastered her sound. “Water” sees her spam the usual tricks from her playbook, employing a sunshine-and-rainbows approach to the production. Woven out of sporadic log drums, a bassline as light as the songbird’s vocal delivery, and the heartbeat of steady percussion, the song is a hybrid of amapiano, pop, and a touch of afrobeats.
Lyrically, Tyla assigns water as a controlling metaphor, drawing associations with the colloquialisms of summer and spring seasons through mentions of sweat and the loss of her breath. From a superficial level, it purports to be a beach song, a soundtrack worth being played alongside romantic promenades and weekend shore visits. However, in an ethereal realm, “Water” is a sensual plea from a girl begging to be pleased by her lover. “Make me sweat / Make me hotter / Make me water,” she sings, enveloping erotic talk within euphemisms with a finesse that can be done better only by Frank Ocean.
Balancing the song on the precarious scale of externalising the explicit and shrouding sex lingo, Tyla carves a two-faced song that presents itself innocent until it’s observed with a finer lens and a sharper ear.
“Water” might not sound like anything novel from Tyla; however, it’s her ability to excel at getting the basics right and understanding her technique that ensures her latest song is an improved retake rather than an excellent misstep.
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