Tyla removed Lagos from her A*POP World Tour after backlash tied to xenophobic attacks in South Africa. Here’s the full gist.
So here’s the tea. Grammy award winner, Tyla was supposed to bring her A*POP World Tour to Lagos. Nigerians were excited, tickets were probably already being planned for. Then, quietly, without any big announcement or explanation, Lagos just disappeared from her tour list.
No press release. No emotional post. It just vanished, like it was never there.
Naturally, people noticed. And people talked
This didn’t happen in a vacuum. It came right after renewed reports of xenophobic attacks on Nigerians and other African migrants in South Africa started making headlines again. And timing, as we all know, matters. A lot of Nigerians felt it was strange, even tone-deaf, for a South African star to swoop into Lagos for a big concert while their own citizens were dealing with hostility back home.
So the backlash built up fast. Social media users started calling for a boycott of the show, arguing that Nigerians shouldn’t keep showing love to South African entertainers while Nigerians are allegedly being mistreated on the other side.
The whole thing also stirred up an old wound: Ayra Starr’s cancelled shows in South Africa, which had visa issues attached to them. People started comparing the two situations, and that just added fuel to the fire.
Even politicians got pulled in. Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan spoke up, basically saying Nigeria should start matching energy with South Africa instead of always playing nice. For her, it wasn’t about hate, it was about respect and fairness for Nigerians abroad.
Then activist VeryDarkMan added his voice too, openly telling Nigerians not to support Tyla’s Lagos show until something concrete is done about the attacks.
Not everyone agreed though. Activist Omoyele Sowore pushed back on the idea of blaming Tyla for things she didn’t personally do, saying it wasn’t fair to hold her responsible for other people’s actions.
Tyla hasn’t said anything publicly about why Lagos was dropped. Her team hasn’t either. Everything else on the tour, Europe, the US, even South Africa, is still intact. It’s just Lagos that quietly disappeared.
Maybe it was the pressure. Maybe it was strategy. We honestly don’t know yet. But one thing’s clear: Nigerians made their voices heard, and somehow, the tour schedule changed right after.
