Tyla’s debut album surpasses 1 billion Spotify streams

The incredible milestone complements Tyla’s meteoric rise to stardom in just a few months. The South African singer was largely unknown until the release of her hit song ‘Water’ in July 2023, which also appears on the recently released album. That track resulted in a viral dance challenge on TikTok, igniting global interest in the then 21-year-old singer. 

‘Water’, a true representation of Africa’s current popular music culture, blends Afrobeats, amapiano and R&B, and arguably owes its mass appeal to this combination of sounds. The song became a top-10 hit in the US, UK and Australia, among other big music markets, and won Tyla the Grammy for Best African Music Performance in early February. 

The trailblazing track, which has garnered more than 650 million streams on Spotify alone, is followed by ‘Truth or Dare’ at 87 million streams and ‘Jump’ alongside Gunna and Skillibeng with almost 85 million. ‘ART’, meanwhile, boasts 42 million streams.

These numbers, barring ‘Water’, means that Tyla has left one-hit-wonder territory and position her for a massively successful journey ahead. 

Tyla, whose short but rapid career took her to the Met Gala in New York in May, currently enjoys more than 31 million Spotify listeners a month.