Cardi B steps in to defend Tyla from online hate as SA star's success skyrockets in the US

News24

3 days ago

Cardi B spoke out against the hate South Africa's Tyla has been receiving online.
Tyla previously caused controversy in the US for identifying as coloured, where the term is considered offensive.
The online hate against her often flares up on social media platforms, likely due to the star's ubiquity and success.
WARNING: This article contains explicit language that some readers may find offensive.
US rapper Cardi B spoke out against the hate South Africa's Tyla has been receiving online.
During a livestream on the social media platform X, Cardi B talked about the challenges of being a celebrity and used Tyla as an example.
'Look at Tyla, people been dragging the shit out of Tyla and it's, like, the girl don't even fucking address or talk about nothing [sic],' the rapper said, referring to how Tyla mostly stays out of controversy.
The Bodak Yellow hitmaker admitted she didn't know why Tyla has been getting so much hate.
'However, all I know is every single time I scroll down on my TikTok, there's a video of her and people are talking shit. And it's like, goddamn, what do you want her to fucking do, cut her fucking veins,' she said.
Cardi B defends TYLA. As she should!! pic.twitter.com/nKDMW6HmAR
— TYLA_Tygrs 🐅✨(Fancount) (@Tyla_Tygrs) August 13, 2025
Tyla previously caused controversy in the US for identifying as coloured, where the term is considered offensive.
In South Africa, coloured people are often described as having mixed ancestry from European, African and Asian descent. In the US, the term colored (without the 'u') is still considered a slur, used to denigrate black people.
The term referred to African Americans during the Jim Crow era, when racial segregation laws were strictly enforced.
Discussions about her identity frequently take place on platforms like TikTok and X between SA and US users.
She eventually responded to the furore after an interview on The Breakfast Club, where host Charlamagne tha God touched on the topic.
In a statement from 2024, she wrote:
'Never denied my blackness, [I don't know] where that came from... I'm mixed with black/Zulu, Irish, Mauritian/Indian and coloured [sic],' Tyla wrote.
'In [SA], I would be classified as a coloured woman and other places, I would be classified as a black woman. Race is classified differently in different parts of the world,' the Grammy winner said.
She continued:
'I don't expect to be identified as coloured outside of [SA] by anyone not comfortable doing so because I understand the weight of that word outside of SA. But to close this conversation, I'm both coloured in South Africa and a black woman... [sic].'
READ | 'Never denied my blackness': Tyla responds to coloured identity controversy after awkward interview
She addressed the controversy again this year during an interview with Variety:
'That [controversy] was really confusing for me. I understood both sides of the story, but I was left asking, 'OK, but what do I do now?''
'When who you are is challenged, especially when it's all you've ever known, it shakes you. You want to stand your ground, because if you don't, someone else will try to define it for you,' she continued.
Earlier this year, she also talked about not responding to Charlamagne's question about how she identifies.
'Me choosing not to say anything, I'm happy that I didn't. I didn't want to explain my culture and something that is really important to me on a platform that is just going to be purposefully misconstrued,' she told British Vogue.
'I've explained it a lot of times before, but people took that and put words in my mouth. They said a whole bunch of things that I never said and ran with it,' she said.
'If people really searched, they'll see that in South Africa, we had a lot of segregation. It was bad for a lot of us. They just classified us. And that just so happens to be the name that the white people called us. They chose to call people who were mixed 'coloured',' she continued.
'And I'm not gonna lie, it was hard because all my life, obviously, I knew 'I'm Black' but also knew that 'I'm coloured'. So, when I went to America, and people were like, 'You can't say that!' I was in a position where I was like, 'Oh, so what do I do? What am I then?''
Online hate, especially about how she identifies, often flares up on social media platforms, likely due to the star's ubiquity and success.
It was reported that Tyla is the only artist to have multiple songs in the Billboard US Afrobeats Top 5 every week of this year so far, with the songs DYNAMITE, Water and PUSH 2 START currently charting.
Tyla also scored two MTV VMA nominations for best choreography and Afrobeats.