South African pop star Tyla announced her second studio album, A*Pop, at the 2026 Billboard Women in Music event in Los Angeles on 29 April, confirming the 14-track project will arrive in July 2026.
The announcement came during one of the higher-profile evenings of the year for women in the music industry, with Tyla attending in a dual role: as an award presenter and as an artist stepping into a new chapter of her career.
She wore Javier Collazo on the red carpet, drawing attention ahead of her appearance inside the Hollywood Palladium.
Tyla and Zara Larsson take centre stage
Tyla was at the event to present the Breakthrough Award to Swedish pop star Zara Larsson, with whom she collaborated on the single She Did It Again. The two artists have built a public friendship that was on full display on the evening, with Tyla speaking candidly about what she values in their relationship.
“It’s always good to have a girl that you can be honest with, that you can rock with, you can have fun with,” she said on the red carpet.
“Hollywood can be very pretentious, you know. So I love that she’s a pure soul. She’s real, guys. She’s a real one. For real.”
Tyla described their collaboration as effortless, with the recording process reportedly feeling natural from the outset.
Larsson, who received the Breakthrough Award from Tyla’s hands, has been one of the more prominent voices in European pop for the better part of a decade, and She Did It Again marks the highest-profile pairing of her career.
What we know about ‘A*Pop’
Tyla confirmed that A*Pop will be a 14-track project, with a July 2026 release window.
Details on singles, features and streaming platforms had not been announced at the time of reporting. According to Billboard, the album represents a more defined and confident era for the artist, a deliberate shift from the more exploratory tone of her debut.
Her first album, Tyla, released in 2023, helped establish her as one of South Africa’s most successful crossover artists in recent memory. The album’s lead single Water became a landmark moment in her career, bridging amapiano influences with globally accessible pop in a way that resonated far beyond South African borders and earned her a Grammy Award for Best African Music Performance in 2025.
The July release places A*Pop squarely in the summer season in the northern hemisphere, a competitive but high-visibility window for international pop releases.
What comes next
With the album confirmed for July, the coming weeks are likely to bring single releases, a rollout campaign and further interviews as Tyla builds momentum ahead of the drop.
Her continued presence on international stages, including Billboard Women in Music, suggests her label is positioning A*Pop for a major international push rather than a regional rollout.
