Tyla Yaweh Is Blessed and Genreless

Spend a few minutes talking with Tyler Jamal Brown—known professionally as Tyla Yaweh—and it’s clear he’s a confident man, one who understands who he is and what he brings to the table. Acutely aware of the star quality energy he possesses, he’s equally conscientious of the role gratitude has played in paving the way for his success. For Tyla, manifesting the reality he desires starts with his thoughts and attitudes toward life. “You gotta be happy, man. We blessin’.”

Indeed, 2021 already seems to be a path of blessings for the Post Malone protege, with rumors swirling of his entrance into the fashion world as well as the release of his highly anticipated sophomore album—“Rager Boy”—set to drop sometime in the near future. When we connect by phone, our conversation follows Tyla’s foray into the music, his relationship with cannabis, and the path he’s following to take over the world.

Let’s talk about growing up in Orlando. What inspired your early attraction to rock music?

Tyla Yaweh: The culture. Watching the culture and seeing how it didn’t exist inside of a box. Learning about music and watching autobiographies is really what led me to want to make music. All of the melodies, instruments, stories, the lifestyle—it all interested me and I wanted to reciprocate it in my own way.

Was there a singular experience that got you hooked?

Tyla Yaweh: Skateboarding. With skateboarding, you’d watch different videos of skaters that had different music playing in the background. Guys like Dustin Dollin—an Austrailian who was super into The Sex Pistols and The Ramones—whose skating style reflected the music he liked. Skateboarding opened people’s minds to different kinds of music and I still enjoy skating to this day. Only now, I have pro-skater friends who I get to support, which is fire.

I just love all types of music. I love exploring and creating new sounds, mixing rock, rap, r&b, and different indie pop melodies into one and creating something new. And I don’t do just one sound or genre of music. You can’t really name the genre, to be honest. It’s genreless.

You ended up bringing that genreless creation process to Los Angeles. What inspired the move?

Tyla Yaweh: Really just watching a lot of the big artists make moves to California and seeing their lives change. I wanted to live the American dream, go out with a bang and make myself a legend. I looked at the blueprints from others who had done it and asked myself, What’s stopping me from doing the same thing?”

And from that move, you got linked with Post Malone?

Tyla Yaweh: I actually opened up for Posty in 2015. The owners of Rolling Loud—Tariq Cherif and Matt Zingler—used to manage me and put me on a bunch of shows. I ended up up doing a show for them in Orlando and met [Post Malone] right when “White Iverson” was popping off. I then moved to Los Angeles and went through my trials and tribulations until my [current] manager—Tess [Siyoum]—saw what I was doing independently at a show in Oakland and brought me over to Dre London, where Posty and Dre ended up signing me. It was meant to be and everything was just blessings—a spider web that was supposed to happen. Nothing was forced whatsoever.

Which probably makes your job a lot easier and a lot more fun.

Tyla Yaweh: Way more fun. I get to smoke with my brother Wiz Khalifa, man! I’ve topped the level of smoking with the gods. I just appreciate everything and take nothing for granted. Doesn’t get much better than that.

On the smoking tip, what role does weed play in your life?

Tyla Yaweh: Weed is everything to me. I love the smell of it, the look, the taste and the high. Sharing weed creates good friendships and creates good music. Weed is God’s gift. It calms my nerves, keeps me happy and removes my anxiety. It also stops me from slapping the shit out of people sometimes. It’s a stress reliever. 

I like pure Indicas. I might smoke a Sativa if I want to stay awake, but I have ADD/ADHD and need to calm myself down. So it’s Gelatos, Cakes, OGs, Headbands. All that.

Creatively, what role does cannabis play for you?

Tyla Yaweh: The song “High Right Now” is about smoking weed and being high, sparking that joint up and getting as high as you can.

How high did you and Whiz get on the set of that remix video?

Tyla Yaweh: Very high. I smoke so much weed now—especially hanging with him—that I don’t even know if I’m high half the time.

Let’s talk about your music. Is there something specific you hope listeners will take from it?

Tyla Yaweh: I want to give people the energy they crave and deserve and to take people out of the dark spaces that some of them are in. It’s music for the people. I’m not making music for myself, you know?

With that said, there must be something about music that fuels you or else you wouldn’t do it.

Tyla Yaweh: Man, I couldn’t live without it. I always have music in my head. Anything I do in my life revolves around music. Music is like therapy for me. It’s therapy for me to make music and it’s therapy to give that music back to people.

For your song “Tommy Lee,” did your subsequent collaboration with the real Tommy Lee come about via the same sort of organic spider web you experienced in signing with Post?

Tyla Yaweh: You sometimes manifest things without even knowing it, you know? The fact that I’m cool with Tommy Lee now is legendary. Mötley Crüe is everything. They raised us and opened a lot of doors for us as artists to do crazy, dumb shit and get away with it. Especially Tommy Lee. He’s our rock version of Lil Pump. He’s always in the tabloids, always doing outlandish shit. It was a vibe.

On that manifesting tip, how do you go about manifesting your successes?

Tyla Yaweh: Once you realize your imagination is something you can bring to real life, it might take a day or it might take a few months or it might take a few years, but you put that thought in the air and you say it out loud and speak it into existence.

Is there a specific instance of where your manifesting technique provided a tangible, desired result for you?

Tyla Yaweh: Having gold records now is part of that feeling and is something that I used to think about all the time. Now, we’re actually doing it because we’re working our asses off and proving to ourselves that we can do anything.

So you envision you already have the gold record and then just work to fill in the gap between the moment you’re in and the moment you’re receiving the gold?

Tyla Taweh: Exactly. Then you go back and put that into the music.

Follow @tylayaweh and check out https://www.tylayaweh.com for tickets and tour dates