Grammys: Tyla’s Album Kicked Out of R&B, Will Compete in Pop (Exclusive)

Tyla bagged the first-ever Grammy for the category of best African music performance earlier this year, but her debut album comes under the pop category at the 2025 show.

Tyla’s self-titled effort was entered into the best R&B album category but was shuffled into best pop vocal album by the Recording Academy’s R&B screening committee which is NOT comprised of Academy employees but rather artists/producers/songwriters and others who classify as ‘experts’ in the R&B field. If Tyla were nominated in pop which is a very competitive list she would have been up against records like Taylor Swift- The Tortured Poets Department, Billie Eilish- Hit Me Hard and Soft, Sabrina Carpenter-Shoer N ‘Sweet, Ariana Grande- Eternal Sunshine and Chappell Roan-The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess.

It would only be right to start Tyla’s album as a surprise, especially because the 14-track album is based on Southern African Amapiano, Afrobeats, and R&B Genres. Her album should be competing with other progressive R & B albums — last year Universal created a second R & B based album that includes other sounds and elements, from rap to dance to pop, and this was her album that should have been competing for that award. Earlier this year, SOS by SZA received the honour.

Six out of the tracks from the Tyla album have been ranked on Billboard’s Hot R&B Songs chart, and one feature “Water” has made it to the top in the chart. “Water” charted to No. 7 on the Hot 100 across all genres, and, for 51 weeks, dominated the U.S. Afrobeats Songs list.

“Water” emerged the winner of the first ever best African music performance Grammy award in February this year. Tyla could have also been submitted to best world music album where most Afrobeats artists have submitted their albums including Burna Boy, Tems and Ayra Starr but best progressive R&B album feels like the best home for the project, at least from a music production standpoint. Tyla has remixes with Travis Scott, Tems, Gunna, Becky G, and Skillibeng.

The kick to pop feels like a shock when an album like Lizzo’s Cuz I Love You, which was pop but included sounds like R&B, dance and rap, was nominated and won best progressive R&B album (formerly called best urban contemporary album) in 2020. The Grammys also kept Tommy Richman’s Tik Tok song “Million Dollar Baby” in rap despite his team putting the non rap song in the rap categories this year. The news caused controversy on the social networks, especially since Richman performs the vocals on the track and the 24-year-old stated he is not a hip-hop artists, although he later tried to explain the meaning of his words.

They vote for the Grammy awards and the first round of voting for the awards of 2025 ended last week. Nominees will be announced on November 8th and the final ballot will be users’ choice voting December 12th to January 3rd. The live show will take place on Feb. 2 at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles.