Tyla, the 22-year-old mononymous sensation, is climbing the charts and riding the global wave of South Africa’s amapiano rise. First, an earworm single, “Water”; next, a self-titled debut album. The Jo’burg local promises to be the sound of summer after snagging her first Grammy Award earlier this year. “Cher tapped me on the shoulder,” Tyla gushes about Grammy week. “She knew me!” When her first solo tour launches, so will everybody else.

SHE GREW UP listening to Stevie Wonder, Boyz II Men, and Brian McKnight. “Music is a huge part of the family. We are very, very close and whenever we come together, we are singing and dancing. My gran was a singer in her day. And this was always the plan. I knew since the beginning. Everyone knew.”

SHE SAID YES to every opportunity to perform—“talent shows, soirees, I’d do Adele, Miley Cyrus, Whitney Houston”—and ever since she arrived in a recording studio in high school, she’s hardly left. “I’ve been figuring out what I wanted to sound like, who I am as an artist. I’ve definitely made terrible songs while [doing that], but all those mistakes got us here.”

THINKING ABOUT “Water” reaching the number one spot on the R&B charts “is so crazy. My best friend and I talk about it every single day, ‘Remember four, three years ago where we were!’ From the outside, it may look like it’s all of a sudden, but for us, it feels like the right time.”

HER FAMILY is proud, and her parents were her Grammy dates. “When I won, I was in front of that mic with nothing prepared, but there was a sense of peace. When I got backstage, my mother crying, my father smiling—they came to America for the first time and it was the best day ever. We were driving back to the house, blasting ‘Water’ in the car, just so, so happy.”

THE ALBUM may be a new sound for some, so she hopes listeners will come “with an open mind…. It makes me feel good, and I just hope it does the same for everyone.”

AFTER AN INJURY, Tyla’s tour was postponed. She promises the extra time to prepare means “it’s gonna be even bigger and better. Get ready.

HAIR, JOHNNIE SAPONG; MAKEUP, ROKAEL; MANICURE, OLIVIA DE MONTAGNAC; TAILOR, HASMIK KOURINIAN. PRODUCED ON LOCATION BY PREISS CREATIVE. FOR DETAILS, GO TO VF.COM/CREDITS.