Tyla – A*POP Album Review: The Summer Album That Plays It Too Safe
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July 2026 has been a frustrating, borderline exhausting month for anyone actually listening to new music with their ears open. We’ve been forced to wade through Future’s The Real Me, a solo project that was nothing more than a painfully bloated, unfocused cash grab, and Charli xcx’s Music, Film, Fashion, which was a brave gamble that ultimately fell flat under the weight of repetitive hooks and filler. Even the promising young voices stumbled; Gracie Abrams delivered a sleepy, overproduced mess with Daughter from Hell, and Tory Lanez buried a few good ideas under 23 tracks of pure bloat on his latest comeback attempt. It seemed like every major release this month was more interested in gaming the streaming algorithms than making a coherent artistic statement.
Then comes Tyla with her new LP, A*POP, dropping right as the summer heat feels as stagnant as the charts. In just a few years, the 24-year-old Johannesburg native has gone from self-releasing “Getting Late” to becoming the “Queen of Popiano,” a global force who shattered 55-year-old records for South African soloists on the Billboard Hot 100 with her massive hit “Water.” She isn’t just a trend-chaser; she’s the youngest African artist in history to hold two Grammys, and she has spent the last two years proving that her fusion of Amapiano and R&B isn’t just a fluke, but a new blueprint for what global pop can sound like.
After spinning A*POP, it’s clear Tyla set out to make a definitive statement—the kind of slick, undeniable splash you expect from a global pop titan repping South Africa. But beneath that bold exterior, the album plays it shockingly safe. Rather than delivering a deep, immersive artistic experience, Tyla treats the project more like a curated playlist: a handful of undeniable mainstream hits padded out with bland, play-it-safe pop tracks. Despite a 14-track runtime, the tracklist feels remarkably inconsistent and surprisingly bloated. It’s certainly not a bad record, but its insistence on polished genericism over raw creativity means it ultimately lacks a distinct soul. For a listener who values boundary-pushing artistry, this one falls short.
Production-wise, I don’t have a single bad thing to say about A*POP; in fact, the beatmaking and engineering are easily the project’s saving grace. Unlike the overprocessed messes that have plagued so many major releases this month, Tyla and her top-tier production roster—including heavyweights like P2J, Ian Kirkpatrick, and Sammy Soso—have crafted something remarkably cohesive. The overall sonic palette seamlessly bridges a slick, global pop aesthetic with a defiant African pop manifesto. It’s genuinely impressive to hear how effectively she blends authentic South African soul with high-gloss American pop polish, particularly on heritage-leaning highlights like “Fairytale.”
What I truly respect about this record is the deliberate world-building approach woven throughout its runtime. Tyla has spoken about wanting to create a full environment rather than just dropping a loose collection of club singles, and that intentionality is audible in every syncopated percussive groove and warm, layered vocal stack. The album’s core—built on deep, bass-heavy grooves and rich percussive textures—proves she is committed to tailoring mainstream pop to her own South African identity on her own terms. Clocking in at a lean 43 minutes, the record completely avoids typical streaming-era bloat, smartly using its global-pop shine to amplify, rather than smother, its local roots and cultural pulse.
While the production on A*POP holds up its end of the bargain, the songwriting is where my brutally honest side has to take over. It’s undeniably more mature than her breakout era, but to be completely blunt, I simply didn’t care for the writing on this record. Across its 14 tracks, the lyrics constantly settle into a safe, generic groove that lacks the sharp edge I always hope to hear on a high-stakes follow-up project.
Tyla explicitly stated that she wanted this album to feel carefree and not overly deep, giving listeners something they could just vibe to without overthinking. While she certainly succeeded in crafting hooks tailored for social media culture—particularly on undeniable earworms like “Is It” and “She Did It Again”—it leaves me disappointed about the overall artistic compromise. Too many cuts lean heavily on repetitive filler phrases that feel like they were engineered in a lab specifically to satisfy streaming algorithms.
Her technical vocal performance remains completely intact; her voice effortlessly suits every mood, allowing her to nimbly traverse genres while keeping melodies easy to digest for a global audience. However, that surface-level polish only highlights the lack of substance underneath. It’s an excellently constructed commercial package designed for high-rotation playlisting. Still, the glaring absence of lyrical depth is often overshadowed by the far more imaginative songwriters operating in today’s indie and pop landscapes.
When it comes to the tracklist, A*POP lives and dies by its first four entries. “IS IT LOVE” delivers an emotionally rhythmic opening statement that I loved on my very first listen—it is easily the standout track on the album and one I know I’ll be coming back to over and over again. It’s followed by “THAT GIRL,” which boasts the best pop-leaning production on the entire project, alongside the danceable anchors “KISS” and “IS IT”.
The singles end up being a bit of a mixed bag. While I didn’t love the Zara Larsson collaboration initially, the glossy production and crossover atmosphere of “SHE DID IT AGAIN” eventually won me over, even if I still find Zara’s performance entirely unconvincing. Then there is “CHANEL”. It’s globally famous for a reason, but thanks to social media overexposure, that hook has quickly turned into the most annoying sound on the record.
The real failure here is how tracks 5 through 9 and 12 through 14 utterly ruin the album’s identity, turning what could have been an artistic accomplishment into a mainstream filler project. Tracks like “FAIRYTALE,” “DOUBLE BLIND,” “FEEL SOMETHING,” “RIGHT NOW,” “CRAZY OF ME,” and “HOT TUBS” are absolute trash. They are boring, weighed down by repetitive hooks and weak songwriting, and suffer from a jarring mood whiplash by dropping unusually emotional lulls right after the danceable bangers. Instead of a bold reinvention, this middle-and-end section slump feels like a collection of average tracks designed strictly to feed the algorithm.
Ultimately, A*POP stands as an impeccably engineered commercial product that falls frustratingly short of being a memorable artistic statement. Tyla and her top-tier production team—including P2J and Ian Kirkpatrick—have delivered a stunning sonic environment that seamlessly bridges high-gloss global pop with authentic Amapiano percussive grooves. Yet, for all its world-building polish and silky-smooth vocal delivery, the album’s surface-level shine only masks a glaring lack of depth.
When A*POP hits its stride early on with standouts like “IS IT LOVE” and “THAT GIRL,” Tyla feels like an unstoppable force. But as the project wears on, its insistence on play-it-safe lyrics and repetitive, algorithm-driven hooks causes the momentum to collapse into an exhausting slump of dull filler. Rather than taking bold risks to push her sound forward, Tyla opts for a high-rotation playlist strategy that plays it far too safe. It is an expertly crafted, breezy summer listen—just don’t expect it to leave a lasting footprint.
[Rating: 5/10]
- Favorite Tracks: IS IT LOVE, THAT GIRL, KISS
- Least Favorite Tracks: FAIRYTALE, FEEL SOMETHING, RIGHT NOW, CRAZY OF ME
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