Grammy Nominee Tyla Tells Apple Music About New Single “Truth or Dare” & How “Water” Changed Her Life

Charts topping South African singer and songwriter Tyla joins Zane Lowe on Apple Music’s “New Music Daily” to discuss her new single, “Truth or Dare.”

They discuss the making of the new single, reflect on her smash-hit “Water” changing her life, recent collaborations with Summer Walker and Travis Scott, and more.

Tyla on having fun making her new single

It was so fun to make. I just feel like I’ve worked on my sound so much these past years working on the album, so making this type of music is easy for me. I love it. I love it. Whenever I make something that I’m excited about, I want to drop it same time. But there’s a lot of times where I learned that being patient is important because I notice that once I wait and I spend more time on certain things, I always come up with something better.

On ‘Water’ changing her life

Water literally changed my whole life completely. It’s so crazy how a song can change your life like this. It’s beautiful. It’s so exciting. I’m so happy that people are loving the sound, coming from home. So yeah, I’m excited to see where it goes from here.

On what she’s learned from collaborating with people like Travis Scott and Summer Walker

It feels so surreal working with people that I’ve always loved and listened to. Yeah, I love it. I love that I’m able to also share my sound with other artists, bigger artists, and share their audience and their audience, experience sounds from home. Collaborating is my favourite. I love working with new people. When I was working on my album, I was travelling literally the world and working with everybody. So yeah, it’s cool that I get to now work with the big names that I’ve always been watching my whole life.

On making her forthcoming album self-titled

For now, my introduction to the world, I just wanted to be clean, Tyla. I want people to get to know my name and get to know my sound because my first project is going to be Tyla in music form. So, I felt like self-titled would’ve been the best way to go.

On her recent success

I think I’m trying to acknowledge it. It doesn’t feel real as yet, to be very honest. A lot of the times, I’ll just be doing what I usually do, and then my team has to remind me, “You can’t do that anymore.” So, I’m kind of adjusting to it. But yeah, I’m just excited that more people are hearing my music and enjoying the stuff that I’m putting out. And yeah, I’ll still have to get used to this whole change, but we’ll see. We’ll see.

On the idea of “home” and how it feels now that her music is representing her community and where she’s come from

I haven’t been home in long since Water started blowing up. So, this is my first time home, and everyone’s just so welcoming and so excited and happy. So, it’s such a good time to be here. It’s summer for us here, so you can imagine how the vibes are here. South Africa is the place to be. Summertime, crazy.

On what she missed the most being on the road and away from home

Obviously my family. I have a big family. I’m very close with them., So being away for so long is so difficult. So, definitely family and the food. Definitely my mother’s food. My mother knows as soon as I land, she knows the routine. She has to have a whole meal ready for me. And every single time, it’s there. I have Pap. It’s there. South African food is what I crave all the time, literally.

On her favourite artists from South Africa

I always listen to Kelvin Momo. He’s a piano producer. Crazy. Crazy. Everyone should listen to him. I’m always listening to him. I’m listening to Nasty C, Kabza De Small. There’s so many amazing artists out here in South Africa.