South African Grammy-winning singer Tyla has removed Lagos from the itinerary of her APOP World Tour, days after her planned concert in Nigeria sparked calls for a boycott amid renewed xenophobic attacks against Nigerians living in South Africa.
A review of the singer’s official tour website on Friday confirmed that the Lagos performance, which had been scheduled for December 22, no longer appears on the tour calendar.
The revised schedule retains previously announced dates across Europe, North America and South Africa, but the Nigerian stop has been quietly removed without any public explanation.
Before the change, Lagos had been announced as the tour’s only Nigerian destination, with the African leg expected to conclude in Cape Town on January 4 before wrapping up in Johannesburg on January 9.
The announcement of the Lagos concert had generated intense debate on social media, where many Nigerians called for a boycott in response to fresh reports of xenophobic attacks against Nigerians in South Africa.
While some argued that South African artistes should refrain from performing in Nigeria until the safety of Nigerians in South Africa improves, others maintained that musicians should not be held responsible for political or social tensions between the two countries.
The controversy escalated after social media activist Martins Otse, popularly known as VeryDarkMan, vowed to mobilise members of his Ratel Movement to prevent the concert from taking place if it went ahead.
As of Friday, neither Tyla nor her management had issued a statement explaining why the Lagos date was removed, leaving fans to speculate whether the backlash influenced the decision.
Born Laura Seethal on January 30, 2002, Tyla has emerged as one of Africa’s biggest global music exports. The Grammy-winning singer and songwriter rose to international prominence with her 2023 smash hit “Water,” which became a worldwide viral sensation, charted in multiple countries, and earned her the inaugural Grammy Award for Best African Music Performance.
Widely regarded as the “Queen of Popiano,” Tyla has built an international following with her distinctive fusion of pop, R&B and South Africa’s Amapiano sound, establishing herself as one of the leading voices of a new generation of African music on the global stage.
