As expected, South African breakout star Tyla claimed the Best Afrobeats award at the 2025 MTV Europe Music Awards (EMAs); an achievement that places her squarely among the rising stars of African music. She won against fellow nominees Tems, Ayra Starr, Burna Boy and Davido, a win which has rebooted the robust conversation around genre representation and inclusivity in global music awards.

Tyla, whose music seem to align more closely with pop/R&B and South Africa’s Amapiano genre, represents a broader, evolving narrative in the global appreciation of African sounds, yet her consistent victories in an Afrobeats-specific category continue to stir debate over the framing of African music within international spaces.

This isn’t the first time Tyla has been awarded in an Afrobeats category. At the 2024 MTV Video Music Awards, she nabbed the award for Best Afrobeats Song, sparking similar conversations. Many music industry figures voiced concern that the distinction blurred genre lines and unfairly sidestepped Nigerian musicians more closely aligned with the Afrobeats genre. Considerably, her win was interpreted as a sign of the growing influence of South African music on the world stage, but for some, this award structure overlooks the unique origins and musical styles of different African genres, lumping them together under a more internationally recognized term for ease of consumption in Western markets. 

Tyla’s great luck with Afrobeats becomes all the more significant when placed in the broader context of genre evolution and fragmentation within African music. There is no denying that African music genres (mainly Afrobeats and Amapiano) are experiencing an unprecedented global demand. Afrobeats has become the shorthand for African music in mainstream media and the Best Afrobeats category itself is relatively new — introduced by global music awards to recognize the African genre’s explosion onto the global stage. As the genre matures and diversifies, many Nigerian artists themselves have been expressing discomfort with being categorized solely under the Afrobeats banner in order to consciously recalibrate how African music fits within a global market that often reduces complex regional sounds into one simplified label.

Tyla’s wins highlight the complexities of genre categorization, especially as she has previously voiced concerns about African artists being “pigeonholed” under the Afrobeats umbrella.

Her speech at the VMAs where she won the Best Afrobeats award reemphasized the need for more nuanced recognition frameworks that honor Africa’s rich musical diversity without oversimplifying its genres for Western audiences. Some Nigerian fans and industry insiders agree that awarding a non-Afrobeats artist in this category dilutes the genre’s unique identity, which has already been under global scrutiny for its amorphous labeling of African sounds.

Moreover, Tyla’s consecutive wins have been noted as part of her ongoing success in major categories typically dominated by West African artists. Her ascent is obviously an ongoing shift where Southern African music, specifically Amapiano, is finding prominence internationally. This expanding recognition is significant not only for Tyla’s career but also for South African artists who previously operated in the shadow of Afrobeats-dominated charts.