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Tyla Dropped Lagos From APOP Tour Amid Xenophobia Boycott

August 1, 2026 By BeatzHive Editorial 2 min read

Tyla Dropped Lagos From APOP World Tour After Xenophobia Boycott Campaign

Grammy-winning South African singer Tyla quietly pulled her planned December 22 Lagos concert from the itinerary of her APOP World Tour, following intense boycott calls from Nigerians angered by renewed xenophobic attacks on their compatriots in South Africa. The Lagos date, which had been the only Nigerian stop on the tour, disappeared from the updated schedule without any explanation from the singer or her team.

Boycott Pressure, VeryDarkMan’s Threat and a Divided Public

The revised itinerary retained every other previously announced date across Europe, North America and South Africa, with the tour’s closing shows listed for Cape Town on January 4 and Johannesburg on January 9. Because no official statement accompanied the change, it was never clarified whether the Lagos show was cancelled outright or simply shelved, leaving fans and commentators to guess at the reasoning.

Opposition to the concert had built rapidly on social media after the date was announced. Critics said staging a South African artist’s show in Nigeria was inappropriate while reports of attacks on Nigerians and other African migrants kept surfacing, including the death of Nigerian national Chika Ibeh during a South African Police Service operation in Cape Town — an incident that strained relations between the two countries and prompted Abuja to demand a full investigation.

Activist Martins Otse, known as VeryDarkMan, vowed in a viral video that there would be no Tyla concert in Nigeria, threatening to deploy his “Ratel Movement” to stop it and insisting the singer should not earn from Nigerians amid the attacks. Author Solomon Buchi queried her silence on the violence, while media personality Do2dtun questioned the show’s promoters. Others pushed back: activist Omoyele Sowore argued on X that a musician should not bear vicarious liability for xenophobic crimes and declared the concert should go on, while law firm DACO LP Africa said Tyla had a right to perform and should not be blamed for sharing a nationality with the attackers.

How Cultural Boycotts Became a Flashpoint in Nigeria–South Africa Ties

Tyla is among the most prominent African artists on the global stage, and her tour routing through Lagos would ordinarily have been a landmark moment for cross-continental collaboration. Instead, the episode illustrated how entertainment increasingly becomes the arena where wider diplomatic grievances between Nigeria and South Africa play out, with artists caught between fans and geopolitics.

The tensions extended beyond the concert itself, as the removal coincided with reports that Nigerian singer Ayra Starr and members of her team were denied South African entry visas — a separate row that reportedly drew the attention of Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan.

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South African singer-songwriter Tyla has removed a scheduled show in Nigeria as tensions hamper relations between the two countries. https://t.co/q4dC5yxIzB

— eNCA (@eNCA) View on X