Album Review: A*POP by Tyla
The South African singer takes nothing on faith on her second album, where love has to cry, shop, and pull up before it counts.
The biggest hint of what to expect from Tyla’s highly-anticipated second album was during a conversation with Rolling Stone in February. “I’ve been through it,” she told the interviewer, “and I feel like a woman now,” and dropped a question into the air: “What’s this Tyla now?” A*POP is her answer, and it is a stern one. Here she believes in very little; a man can tell her how much he loves her all he wants, but what she needs from him is proof, which can come in the form of crying, shopping, pulling up or, for example, tears. The words themselves are sweet, and she continues giving them away, but the lady singing these songs mostly wants her needs met without a doubt.
In the song “Is It Love” she tells a man that compliments lost their meaning a long time ago, “You know how many times I heard I was cute?/Can’t just say it, I need to see it, I need proof,” and the evidence she wants is the hardest to fake, namely tears, which must meet a standard: “Don’t mean shit If I don’t see tears in those eyes.” The price on “Chanel” is different, but here she demands to be shown as well: “How you say you love me? You ain’t put me in Chanel,” and during the hook she measures him as an unreliable investment, the kind who walks in confident, but falls for her and comes with a lot of baggage which costs her. In the song “That Girl,” she buys herself something expensive, like diamonds, watches and a trip to somewhere where her phone won’t work. Quality control, in other words. She has heard these words before from men who could not offer her anything else.
The majority of the men Tyla addresses receive warnings before anything else, especially in the dancehall-laden “She Did It Again,” where the man is warned that he is in danger here. It is not safe for him, nor a game he can win: “Baby, this is all child’s play to me.” Zara Larsson tries to match her menace for a verse, but Tyla comes back even meaner, realizing nothing between them is mutual: “We are not a team, this is not FIFA/No replays, no wheel-ups.” “Mr. Nonchalant” is a less menacing song of the same kind. Here she introduces herself as “Mrs. Get Anything I Want,” likes his eyes because they match her thong, and hires him immediately: “No special occasion, but you can wear me like a neck tie.”
Liquideep joins her for an uptempo pop-flavored “Fairytale,” and this time it is Tyla who is the one making offers: “Can I be your fairytale?/Promise I will love you well.” They respond in kind, promising that they would undergo the pressure and heartache again just to be with her. She remains that open on “Right Now,” reaching out first at some late hour, knowing exactly what this means, and calling the bluff of both of them: “I know that you miss me, but you play it down.” She wants back in the bed they made, no talk about yesterday. On “Kiss,” she is all déjà vu and new perfume, fiending after a man she calls her drug, and in “Crazy of Me,” where MaWhoo sings in isiZulu, Tyla is the one saying sorry: “I thought I had enough, enough time.” She wishes somebody told her earlier.
She wrote a lot less for “Double Blind” and “Hot Tubs.” The former is mostly her obeying orders and offering to jump from here; the latter she basically finished shrugging: “I am not a saint/I don’t wear a cape/I made a mistake.” Both songs do not embarrass her, but it’s written thin and left them thin.
No certainty remains in the song “Is It,” the best writing here. She wants to know what makes her do this, “Is it the fucks that I don’t give?/Is it the men that I don’t miss?” and she makes a list of possible suspects, the unzipped dress, the girls she came with, the cup leaving her lips. Even the goal is questionable: “Is it the idea that I like?/Or do I really wanna make you mine?” The same lady who demanded crying for evidence now finds herself dancing with no clue about herself, and resolves the issue the only way she can: “Either way, I need a little more.”
There is no question mark in “I Don’t Care,” where the ex is out every week at parties hoping to see her and has started following her friends. She walks him through it in the plainest English she knows: “Could you make it make sense?/We so in the past sense.” He does not get anything to look for; her friends never liked him anyway. Somewhere he still scans the room for her on a Friday night, and she wrote a whole song about the fact.
Great (★★★★☆)
Favorite Track(s): “That Girl,” “Double Blind,” “Mr. Nonchalant”