Grammy Award winning South African singer Tyla says she never denied her blackness following Breakfast Club interview.
During the interview Tyla answered a series of questions which started off with Charlamagne Tha God telling her not to trust the labels in America. “This is a safe space, the label saying you had togo do a nervous poop and all kind of stuff,” something that Tyla denied.
At which point Charlamagne said, “don’t trust label people in America, remember that Tyla, don’t trust label people in America.”
Charlamagne then congratulated her on being the youngest African artist to win a Grammy.
“It was very difficult but it wasn’t something I was intentional about, I feel like everything fell into place naturally,” Tyla said about making in internationally.
“You were very aggressive on the ‘Jump’ record, was that intentional?” Charlamagne asked. She said, “I wanted a different vibe, to show a different side.”
At the end of the 19:57 seconds interview Charlamagne ask her about ongoing debates about her blackness after she had said she was colored and not black.
Tyla then looked behind her and a voice from off mic uttered, “Can we not, por favor?” Charlamagne chided the person but advising them that their utterance would be kept in the final edit of the interview at which point the voice said, “Next one, please.”
The awkward moment has been circulated around social media cause Tyla to issue a statement on X saying,
“Yoh guys, Never denied my Blackness. idk [I don’t know] where that came from,” she said. “I’m mixed with Black, Zulu, Irish, Mauritian, Indian, and Coloured. In [South Africa], I would be classified as a Coloured woman, and [in] other places, I would be classified as a Black woman. Race is classified differently in different parts of the world.”
She continued, “I don’t expect to be identified as Coloured outside of [South Africa] by anyone not comfortable doing so because I understand the weight of that word outside of [South Africa]. But, to close this conversation, I’m both Coloured in South Africa and a Black woman. As a woman of the culture, it’s ‘and,’ not ‘or.'” The singer closed by saying the word “Asambe,” which is “Let’s go” in Zulu language.
The term “colored” in the United States has a deeply racist connotation, historically used during the Jim Crow era to segregate people. This context explains why its usage is questioned by some Western listeners.
South African journalist Misa Narrates highlighted in Afropunk that the term “Coloured” has a specific meaning in South Africa.
“For South Africans, Coloured is a term that identifies a community that has cultivated a unique culture, language, and identity, not as a result of segregation, but as a means of establishing a new community.”
During South Africa’s apartheid era (1948 to the early ’90s), “Coloured” was legally defined as a racial classification for individuals who did not fit into the categories of white or aboriginal groups. In South Africa, it denotes a distinct racial group alongside Black, white, and Indian communities, and differs significantly from its American usage without the “u.” The Coloured community is diverse and doesn’t conform to America’s binary racial concepts.
