Nigerian On-Air Personality Do2dtun has criticised the South African musician Tyla, after her acceptance speech at the 2024 VMA Awards.
Tyla won the Best Afrobeats Award. She was nominated alongside Tems, Ayra Starr, Davido, and Burna Boy.
Despite the genre’s enormous success and impact, Tyla criticised the African artists who are collectively grouped under the Afrobeats umbrella during her speech at the event.
She went on to say that she was an Amapiano singer, not an Afrobeats singer.
Reacting to her reply in a series of posts on his X name, Do2dtun criticised her for obtaining an award which didn’t represent her art, considering her Amapiano claim.
He wrote, “Aunty @tyla aka am not Afrobeats, I am Amapiano. We have heard you but your song “Water” is not amapiano either. If you thought you were categorized in a wrong category, you should have given the award back or denounced the nomination.
“You clearly took an award that didn’t represent you or your sound from that statement you made.”
In a similar story Burna Boy, Ayra Starr and Tems, all missed out on winning an award at the MTV Video Music Awards on Wednesday night.
South African artist Tyla claimed the Best Afrobeats award with her hit “Water,” surpassing Burna Boy, Ayra Starr, and Tems in the male-dominated category.
“The global impact that Water had on the world just proves that African music can be pop music, too,” Tyla said after winning the award in Elmont, New York.
She noted that the award was “bittersweet” because “there’s a tendency to group all African artists under Afrobeats … African music is so diverse. It’s more than just Afrobeats.”
Meanwhile, Taylor Swift was the standout at the MTV Video Music Awards, becoming the most decorated solo artist in VMA history by winning seven categories, including the coveted Video of the Year award.
