The MTV Video Music Award for Best Afrobeats Video was an award presented at the MTV Video Music Awards by the organisation.It was first presented at the 2023 MTV Video Music Awards and last presented at the 2025 MTV Video Music Awards.
Recipients 2020s + Year Winner(s) Video Nominees Rema and Selena Gomez "Calm Down" Tyla "Water" "Push 2 Start"
Statistics Artists with multiple wins 2 wins Tyla Artists with multiple nominations 3 nominations Asake Ayra Starr Burna Boy 2 nominations Davido Rema Tems Travis Scott Wizkid Tyla
Tyla's response to win for 2024 Best Afrobeats Video
Tyla's music video for her song "Water" was the winner at the 2024 MTV Video Music Awards for MTV Video Music Award for Best Afrobeats Video. In her acceptance speech, Tyla chose to identify with South African "amapiano", distancing herself from Nigerian "afrobeats", which ended up causing mayhem on social media as Nigerian on-air personality Do2dtun went on to call Tyla a hypocrite for receiving the award for Best Afrobeats in the first place before identifying with Amapiano.
'Uppity African' incident
Tyla was also heavily criticized on social media and by notable people such as American media personality Joe Budden, for not choosing to hold her award and instead giving it to rapper Lil Nas X, she stated "I’m not strong enough, please hold it for me, thank you I'm sorry." Many thought she was asking the person next to him, female singer Halle Bailey, known mononymously as Halle and labeled Tyla as "uppity african", a term meaning a person shows a great sense of entitlement. Tyla later confirmed she wasn't, in a post on X stating "Y’all make everything weird… I was not asking my girl Halle… We just girls," Halle later responded saying "Exactly, love u babes congrats.” American rapper Cardi B also came to the singer's defense.
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