Tyla jets to SA for matric dance surprise visit
Tyla, who spends much of her time in Los Angeles, jetted off to SA and St Stithians Boys' College in Joburg to make Mollwane ('Mo') Madiba's dream of having her as his date come true.
'From the US to South Africa! I'm so grateful to the 5FM team — you guys honestly revived this moment for me. It's just been an amazing thing. It's going down in the history books! I was literally dateless because I asked Tyla … and then Tyla pulled through! I'll never forget it! On the dance floor she said, 'Come, we're singing!' and shouted 'Mollwane and Tyla for MD!' I heard her say that I'm a gentleman, by the way. Thank you, Tyla!' Mo said.
Since February, Mo had been campaigning using the hash tag #MOandTYLAForMD, pleading with Tyla to join him on his special day, shooting him up trends lists as his TikTok video was shared across the globe, finally getting the attention of the superstar.
The post even got the attention of the 5FM team, who decided to help him reach his goal.
Though Tyla had previously mentioned she would not be able to attend, weeks down the line saw the singer performing her latest single Is It at the Mears Hall in the school.
'When we saw Mo's video, we knew we had to get involved and pull all the strings we can,' said Masi Mdingane, Business Manager for 5FM and Good Hope FM.
'This is what 5FM is about — moving the youth of South Africa, celebrating their courage, and amplifying the voices and stories that inspire the nation. If it means asking Tyla for one epic surprise, then that's what we do. Thank you to Tyla, her family and her team for making this happen … and to Mo and Saints for starting a fire that'll burn in many hearts for a long time to come.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Mail & Guardian
4 hours ago
- Mail & Guardian
Digital storytelling can contribute to indigenous knowledge
Digital storytelling, particularly via social media, helps indigenous communities preserve and share their knowledge and histories, fostering decolonisation 'I saw a TikTok the other day …' These are words frequently uttered by young people. It is the fifth most used social media platform in the world and joins YouTube and Instagram as sites where people create skits and structure narratives through images, video audio and text as a form of digital storytelling. Digital storytelling can be defined as the making of a short, narrated film, often by people with little or no professional media production experience. Around the world, storytelling has always been oral, taking place at gatherings or rituals tied to identity and belonging and used to teach values and morals. Such storytelling methods are common in indigenous communities to explain their way of life and how everything came to be, maintaining symbolism, preserving community knowledge and history. While much of this continues to be practised, given the digital world, there are projects afoot to integrate indigenous knowledge with digital storytelling as a form of documenting and preserving it. This is seen as indigenous communities leveraging digital media as a tool in their ongoing struggle for decolonisation. Indigenous digital storytelling One of the many ways indigenous communities seek justice and promote self-determination and self-preservation is through various forms of storytelling, shared within a group of people and their ancestors. Indigenous storytelling nurtures, educates, serves as a form of resistance and communicates the experiences of colonial oppression, dispossession and injustice. Indigenous storytelling positions and exposes multiple truths and meanings to knowledge, foregrounding the indigenous ways of knowing and doing that colonial projects sought to erase. Indigenous storytelling, grounded in history, is about understanding lived experiences and realities from the vantage point of the downtrodden and accentuating the beliefs, values and traditions of diverse indigenous peoples. Because colonialism invades a people's mental universe, displacing what they previously knew, replacing it with what colonialism has brought in, indigenous knowledge promotes knowledge that is relevant within certain cultural contexts and advocates for indigenisation of knowledge as well as the multiplicity of knowledge. Digital storytelling brings together narratives with audio and visual content. Thus, its role in indigenous knowledge is that it offers opportunities for rich, intergenerational exchanges that promote locally relevant insights. Digital storytelling foregrounds specific issues from specific perspectives, promotes critical thinking and fosters knowledge-sharing and capacity-building. Moreover, digital storytelling delves into the narratives of indigenous people by amplifying their voices and experiences in such a way that their realities are not distorted or erased. Decolonial digital journeys: The Popi Show Indigenous realities, experiences and knowledge filtered through Western negations are subject to distortions, fabrications, omissions and erasures. Drawing from Rediscovering is creating digital stories of indigenous peoples where their perspectives, their culture, identity and expressions are the centre of the recordings and visuals that are featured on digital platforms such as social media. The role of social media in the rediscovery and recovery of indigenous knowledge in a digital world is important to disrupting Western distortions of indigenous peoples and remembering indigenous ways of knowing and doing. Young content creators across the African continent are actively remembering the stories of their ancestors by using social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram and TikTok to disseminate this knowledge for larger audiences to learn and engage. Among them is Popi Sibiya, a South African content creator and traveller, who has a unique way of sharing indigenous stories on TikTok and YouTube. Through her online series Her journey across the African continent and South America centres the spiritual, cultural and historical roots of the indigenous peoples. In her unconventional means of travel — boats, bikes, buses, walking or even asking the locals for lifts — Sibiya listens to indigenous stories and shares indigenous knowledge, captures and partakes in traditions as a form of participatory memory. In one video, Sibiya visits the San people — the indigenous hunter-gather group of Southern Africa — in Botswana. When she spends time with the San, dressed in their traditional attire and participating in their ways of finding subsistence through eating things like berries and wild spinach, consuming water plants, and learning how to light fires, she is bearing witness to cosmologies that survived colonialism, forced removals from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve and centuries of silencing. She engages in what can be described as reciprocal documentation — filming trance dances, story-circles and language rituals with the awareness that the stories belong to the people, not to her camera. Some of the many stories Sibiya documents are those of the people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a country that has been experiencing ongoing violence, human rights violations, mass displacements and colonial traumas. She spent days at camps for internally displaced people in Goma, highlighting the everyday struggles of the people, from children who do not have access to education to those learning in precarious conditions, from farmers who have lost their land to people who have lost their livelihoods. She engages with the local communities, where people speak of war, displacement, mining exploitation and gender-based violence. The Popi Show is actively filming, platforming and archiving local legends, spiritual cosmologies and clan histories which are passed down orally by the elders. This demonstrates that social media can be a site of learning, critical thinking and a safe space for sharing of indigenous stories. Because decolonising knowledge means challenging the dominant narratives that distort those of indigenous communities, the role of social media in documenting, sharing, reclaiming and memorialising indigenous knowledge is the process of rediscovery and recovery neglected by mainstream media and education systems. Kgomotso Komane is a PhD candidate and writes on behalf of at the University of Pretoria.
The Star
16 hours ago
- The Star
Tyla's ‘Is It' is the catchy new single ready to dominate European summer playlists
Fresh from hosting the 2025 Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards, Tyla has announced the release date for her new single, 'Is It'. After previously teasing a snippet of the single on her social media, the chart-topping artist has officially shared the link to pre-save her highly anticipated song 'Is It'. The upcoming track is already a hit on TikTok, with fans using it as a sound for their content. The track truly portrays her versatility and her energetic sound. Without skipping a beat, Tyla is building on the success of her previous hit 'Bliss', which she released in May. 'Is It' is already a hype on social media, with her international fans dubbing it as the 'song of the summer'. While it may be winter in South Africa, Tyla's global fanbase is basking in the warmth of summer in the Northern Hemisphere, where she is currently based. Her music transcends seasons and borders, and her South African fans will get to enjoy the summer vibes too, even in winter. It features Tyla's signature blend of Afro-pop and R&B, with a hint of experimental production. The 23-year-old singer's ability to blend genres and experiment with different styles proves that 'Is It' is expected to be yet another standout track in her discography. As she continues to push boundaries and explore new sounds, Tyla's music remains true to her artistic vision. With her recent contribution to the "Smurfs" movie soundtrack with 'Everything Goes With Blue', Tyla has proven her versatility and range. In a video shared on TikTok, Tyla is seen in the studio dancing to the upcoming single alongside her choreographer Lee-ché 'Litchi Hov' Janecke. Fans flooded the comment section, expressing their excitement for the upcoming single. TikTok user @Nora commented: 'Another new song??? We are winning 😩.' Another user @Amely commented: 'The hype is real! Can't wait to hear this track drop on Friday, it's going to be a vibe!' Additionally, the phrase 'tylawewannaparty' has been all over the 'Push 2 Start' singer's social media. She also made the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards audience chant it as she played a snippet of the upcoming single during the awards ceremony. One fan pointed out that the phrase could be Tyla's hint at a new album, as 'Is It' will be her second single to drop this year. TikTok user @teaonperiod asked: 'Also, doesn't anyone realise that Tyla is hinting at a new album called 'We Wanna Party' and in her last post, she said it is coming sooner than you think???'
IOL News
a day ago
- IOL News
Understanding the 'Meet and Greet' trend among South African youth- malls beef up security
GrandWest Casino prohibits unauthorised meet and greets Image: Supplied What began as a way for influencers to connect with their fans has evolved into a new trend among South African youth — self-organised "meet and greets" or pop-up social gatherings, sometimes filled with violence, coordinated entirely through social media. These informal events, often planned via Instagram stories, TikTok videos, and WhatsApp broadcasts, see hundreds — sometimes thousands — of teenagers and young adults descending on malls, parks, or other public venues to meet people they've connected with online. Originally inspired by content creators who would schedule pre-approved, branded meet-and-greets with their followers, the trend has since shifted into a grassroots movement. Now, everyday users with a few thousand followers — or simply the right kind of digital influence — are pulling crowds simply by announcing a time and place. For many young people, these events offer something offline that social media alone cannot: human connection. 'The idea is to finally put a face to the username,' said a 15-year-old, who attended a meet-up at a Cape Town mall in June. 'You chat to someone every day on TikTok or Insta, and then boom — you meet them in real life. That's exactly what it is.' Organisers and attendees describe the meet-ups as spontaneous and often unregulated. No formal permissions are typically obtained for these gatherings, and the events are usually unstructured, relying on the crowd itself to bring energy and direction. But not all gatherings go smoothly. Some meet-ups have resulted in altercations and even chaos. Recently malls and SAPS have been forced to respond to incidents where groups of teens clashed, either due to rival cliques, personal disputes, or the sheer size of the crowd overwhelming mall security. Video Player is loading. Play Video Play Unmute Current Time 0:00 / Duration -:- Loaded : 0% Stream Type LIVE Seek to live, currently behind live LIVE Remaining Time - 0:00 This is a modal window. Beginning of dialog window. Escape will cancel and close the window. Text Color White Black Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Background Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Opaque Semi-Transparent Transparent Window Color Black White Red Green Blue Yellow Magenta Cyan Transparency Transparent Semi-Transparent Opaque Font Size 50% 75% 100% 125% 150% 175% 200% 300% 400% Text Edge Style None Raised Depressed Uniform Dropshadow Font Family Proportional Sans-Serif Monospace Sans-Serif Proportional Serif Monospace Serif Casual Script Small Caps Reset restore all settings to the default values Done Close Modal Dialog End of dialog window. Advertisement Next Stay Close ✕ Ad loading IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Canal Walk Shopping Centre Canal Walk confirmed a recent altercation at the shopping mall involving teens Image: Supplied In one such incident, a gathering organised at a Cape Town mall had to be broken up by private security after a fight broke out between a group of teenagers. Vanessa Herbst, Marketing Manager at Canal Walk confirmed that Centre Management is aware of a gathering that took place at the shopping mall involving a group of unsupervised youth. 'While our security team with the assistance of the SAPS worked diligently to manage the situation, the nature of the gathering presented significant challenges. 'The centre does not condone disruptive or inappropriate behaviour of any kind. As a shared public space, we are committed to maintaining a safe, respectful and family-oriented environment for all our shoppers, staff, and tenants.' Herbst said while incidents of this nature are rare, they highlight the importance of shared responsibility between centre management, parents and the wider community. 'We are engaging with relevant stakeholders and authorities to strengthen our approach in managing gatherings of this nature to prevent similar incidents in future. 'We remain committed to providing a secure and welcoming environment and we thank our community for their ongoing support.' Donald Kau, head of communications at the V& Waterfront said they are concerned when these incidents take place as they place the participants as well as visitors to the Waterfront in danger and disrupt everyone from enjoying their outing to our neighbourhood. 'We manage a comprehensive security operation that monitors and anticipates increased activity across the property over weekends, public and school holidays, major public entertainment and sport events, brand activations etc, with our security officers reacting quickly to intervene when necessary.' Kau said in the instance of youngsters caught participating in these fights, statements are taken by our security officials, written warnings are provided to the individuals in our custody, the parents and SAPS notified and where a police investigation is necessary. The V&A Waterfront said they are working with SAPS Image: Nico Smit/Unsplash 'We would supply the investigating officer with security footage, photographs and personal details of those involved as part of reporting of the incident. 'The spontaneous nature of these incidents has seen us increase the number of our security personnel as well as improve their capability to respond everywhere that gatherings take place. We will not hesitate to ban people who go out of their way to create chaos and mayhem and harm others from visiting our neighbourhood.' Wendy Louw, Digital Marketing Manager at Somerset Mall also confirmed an increase in security. "Given that the schools are on holiday, we expect to experience a higher volume of teenagers in the mall. All minors should be accompanied by a parent or guardian when visiting the mall, in line with our House Rules, to ensure a safe and enjoyable experience for all. "In light of the recent misconduct of minors in malls around Cape Town, we wish to confirm that Somerset Mall increased security at our events. We also continue to work closely with SAPS and security teams from the Helderberg area. "If shoppers wish to organise any public gathering, including meet-ups and meet-and-greets, they are required to contact our Centre Management office to gain written permission." In the meantime GrandWest Casino has prohibited such gatherings without prior approval.
