Last summer, 22-year-old South African singer Tyla summoned her choreographer, Lee-ché “Litchi” Janecke, to discuss “Water,” the lead single for her self-​titled debut album, out March 22. (Her accompanying tour, initially slated to start at the same time, has been postponed due to an injury.) She had seen how concert audiences responded when she did the Bacardi—a South African dance known for its hypnotic movements—and she wanted to incorporate it into the video. Litchi went to work, experimenting with a routine during a rolling blackout in Johannesburg. “I sent her a rough draft, and she lost her mind,” says Litchi.

The song already had all the makings of a pop banger—seductive vocals, an infectious beat—but it was the dance that inspired millions to take up a TikTok challenge and landed “Water” on Top 10 charts across 16 different countries last fall. Tyla soon became the first South African musician in more than half a century to enter the US Billboard Hot 100. It also won her a Grammy for best African music performance in February. “A Grammy was always a goal,” she says. “But never in a million years could I have fathomed it would happen this soon.” 

Born and raised in Johannesburg, Tyla saw herself as a performer from an early age. A classic middle child, she made her parents and siblings her first audience: “I was the attention-​seeker.” After high school, she persuaded her parents to let her take a gap year to pursue music. “It was a lot of crying, a lot of convincing, but they knew that it wasn’t a random decision,” she says.

Her debut album is more than an introduction; it’s a mission statement about the kind of pop star she wants to be. It pushes the boundaries of what she calls “popiano” (a remix of the synth-driven South African subgenre amapiano) and shows a bolder, bombastic side of the singer. “People don’t know I can be spicy, but I can be spicy!” she says. As Litchi, who’s been working with the singer for nearly four years, puts it: “She’s showing everyone where her music came from. She’s a South African girl speaking to the world through dance, through music.” ​—Cat Cardenas

I like to go where things are uncomfortable, or complex,” says Omar Apollo. “Making music isn’t easy. That’s why I’ve dedicated a lot of my life to it.” It’s also why the 26-​year-old musician hasn’t taken much of a break since releasing his debut album, Ivory, in 2022. A lush blend of R&B and hip-hop along with Latin trap and Mexican corridos, Ivory revealed Apollo’s chameleonic versatility and earned the singer-songwriter his first Grammy nomination for best new artist. Not long after, he left his home base of LA to open for SZA on the North American leg of her arena SOS tour. “It’s not my show, so I was kind of scared of how the crowds would react,” he says. But “seeing people’s expressions, it’s huge.” In October, Apollo released Live for Me, a sparse and raw EP that was, in a way, an exercise in further discomfort. (One of the EP’s tracks, “Ice Slippin,” is about the winter he came out to his family.) “Those songs helped me find where I was going,” he says. And this year, there is new music on the way.

The son of working-class Mexican immigrants from Guadalajara, the singer (born Omar Apolonio Velasco in 1997) grew up in Hobart, Indiana, where he first taught himself to play the guitar. “Music gave me a feeling, a sparkle,” he says. After gaining traction on SoundCloud, Apollo was signed to Artists Without A Label in 2017 (he later switched to Warner), and quickly ensnared in a cycle of releases and tours. “I wasn’t really thinking about it,” he says, looking back. “My brain was just on autopilot.” He recorded one whole version of Ivory, then scrapped it and started over. “I had to discover myself,” he says.

That sense of clarity is crucial for Apollo, who values his instincts. Last summer, that meant leaving LA for London, where he set up shop in Little Venice, a quaint neighborhood named for its canals. “It was a little too quiet,” he jokes. The neighbors slipped him notes outlining their objections to the volume of Apollo’s speakers. In between recording, he’d invite friends on bike rides through its many parks.

Aside from the occasional noise complaint, the cloudy skies of London—a contrast to sunny LA—suited him. Apollo says he has always been drawn to subjects that are hard to grasp, rather than those that feel concrete or bright. (He is clearly aware of wider world issues: When we speak in early January, he’s just wrapped up a benefit concert for humanitarian aid in Sudan and Gaza.) “I’ve talked to my therapist about it, but I really like being in a different place.” In this case, dislocation added perhaps an even greater force to his new work. “I get kind of lost in the process of making music,” he acknowledges. “I’m surfacing emotions, and I’m not zoomed out. But later, I am like, Wow, I really wrote this from my soul. I felt this really deeply.” —CC

Between the release of her debut studio album, Good Riddance; opening for Taylor Swift in 18 cities—from Philadelphia to Inglewood—during the Eras Tour; and scoring a best-new-artist nod at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards, 2023 was a banner year for Gracie Abrams.

Nearly two weeks after Grammys night, the 24-year-old is still reeling. “Being nominated alongside some of the kindest and most talented people I’ve ever met is the greatest honor,” she says. “Being in the same room as Joni [Mitchell] and watching her perform has forever altered the course of my life. I’m grateful there’s photographic evidence of our meeting for a million reasons, but mostly because I will never be able to understand how it happened.”

Abrams’s big breakthrough had a long windup. In the fall of 2019, a few months after dropping out of Barnard, the native Angeleno released her first single, “Mean It,” before making her television debut (on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon) remotely, during the grim summer of 2020. Yet her particular brand of indie pop, rich with emotional resonance, had little trouble finding a fiercely loyal audience, even before the Eras of it all.

That’s not to say, of course, that joining a tour of that scale and duration—even after headlining three of her own—didn’t come with a learning curve. As Abrams journeyed with her band across the country, playing some of the biggest stadiums anywhere, maintaining her stamina (and general well-being) took considerable effort. “You have to treat [it] like you’re an athlete, and I didn’t realize that until this past year, really,” she says. “It majorly affects the experience if you try to eat well, sleep as much as possible, also just to sweat a little every day.” She credits Swift with creating an atmosphere that, wherever they played, felt comfortingly intimate and familiar. “The Eras Tour is at a scale I couldn’t have imagined,” Abrams notes. “But because of what her music does and how her community has evolved and how good they are to each other, you don’t feel like you’re in front of 80,000 people. You feel like you’re in front of your friends.”

And Abrams is only just getting started. She’ll be back on the road with Swift for a string of dates next fall, and has new music out later this year. “I don’t want to give too much away,” she teases of her latest work, “but I’ve never had more fun making anything and I really hope that whoever listens to it eventually will feel that.” —Marley Marius

If the name Katseye isn’t familiar to you now, that is sure to change very, very soon. The six-person global girl group, made up of Daniela Avanzini, Manon Bannerman, Yoonchae Jeong, Sophia Laforteza, Lara Raj, and Megan Skiendiel, was created last year through The Debut: Dream Academy, a high-pressure competition program engineered by Geffen Records and Hybe, the South Korean entertainment conglomerate behind BTS, Tomorrow X Together, Enhypen, and other outfits. (This summer, an as-yet-untitled Netflix documentary series directed by Nadia Hallgren will retrace Katseye’s formation, a process that included whittling some 120,000 hopefuls down to just 20 candidates.) Ranging in age from 16 to 21 and variously hailing from South Korea, the Philippines, Switzerland, and the United States, Katseye’s members are out to change the look and sound of modern pop as we know it.

“All I can say right now is that it’s going to be super exciting,” says Manon of their much-anticipated debut single, due out this year. Adds Megan, “We’re ecstatic to present a song that reflects our unique experiences and personalities. It’s a track that’s true to us and tells a relatable story.” If you’re wondering what to expect sonically, this is a band of young women whose chief musical influences manage to plumb every possible corner of contemporary pop music. (They include, in no particular order, Beyoncé, Ariana Grande, Miley Cyrus, Britney Spears, Erykah Badu, Rihanna, Janet Jackson, Shakira, Pharrell, and Kaytranada.) Daniela seems to speak for all of Katseye when she identifies her ideals in a recording artist: “powerful vocals, dynamic stage presence, versatility, and advocacy for empowerment.”

So too is the group eager for people to see just how thoughtful (and rigorous) Geffen and Hybe were in putting them all together. “Each person has had their own struggles, wins, and memorable moments throughout this journey,” says Sophia. She feels that the Netflix series will provide “a deeper dive into the reality of reaching for the dream.” Yoonchae echoes that sentiment: “I hope you can learn more about our members and what process we have gone through by watching our growth.”

To a one, Katseye’s members regard their dramatically disparate backgrounds as an asset—something that has only made them more dynamic as a sextet. “We each have our own strengths, so we will always do everything we can to help one another and lift each other up,” says Lara. “We’re in a situation where we really just have each other and have to take care of one another always, which we really do. We are each so unique and come from very different walks of life, but at the end of the day, music is what really brings us together.” —MM

Hair, Lacy Redway; makeup, Holly Silius using YSL Beauty. Produced by Family Projects. Set Design by Olivia Giles.