Raised on Sweden’s hitmaking DNA and East African rhythm, Tyra Chantey is curating a world that’s fully hers.courtesy of Tyra Chantey
Tyra Chantey doesn’t really do “either/or.” She’s the kind of artist who can hold Sweden’s polished pop credentials in one hand and Uganda’s smooth rhythms in the other, while still insisting on forging her own lane. She is a smorgasbord of binaries that defy rigid categorization.
That’s been the story for as long as she can remember. Born and raised in the suburbs of Stockholm, the singer-songwriter grew up with parents who made sure Uganda was a lived experience shared with her sister.
“I’m a quarter Swedish, the rest is Ugandan, and I feel a very strong need to connect to my African audience,” she tells OkayAfrica. Holidays often meant time with her jjajja, aunties, uncles, and cousins in Uganda while learning the food, the weddings, the energy, and the way community moves. And she can easily rattle off her comfort order without hesitation: matoke with peanut sauce, with chicken or beef stew on the side.
It’s inside that two-world upbringing that her love for song, dance, and performance really took root. She grew up listening to Brandy, Beyoncé, and Destiny’s Child (with Boyz II Men always in rotation thanks to dad), alongside pop greats like the Spice Girls and Britney Spears.
New chapter loading: Tyra Chantey is gearing up for a full-length project in 2026.courtesy of Tyra Chantey
But her first brush with real fame and awe came from watching her own dad command a stage. “The earliest memory I have of really getting like starstruck was seeing my own dad perform, because he used to be part of Swahili Nation,” she says.
Yes, that Swahili Nation: the Sweden-based ’90s R&B/hiphop group that helped make it natural to hear Kiswahili lyrics on an R&B sound. Her father, Ken Daniels Kayongo, was part of that crew of diaspora game-changers whose influence is felt everywhere now. But back in the late ’90s and early 2000s, songs like “Hakuna Matata” (aka Mpenzi) were ahead of their time.
“He took me and my sister on the road with him… and we also got to see him on stage performing,” Chantey says of her dad. “[The group] had this way of blending their African culture, their East African culture, with pop music and R&B, which is similar to what I do.”
You can hear that influence in her music. The royalty-free “Sweet Talk” from 2021 is probably her most popular song to date, as it was a YouTuber favorite. On the more recent“Confidence,” her vocals slide over an Afro-fusion production while she sings in Kiswahili. Her newer single “Nobody” leans even more into her R&B softness, with a playful, half-sung cadence that flirts with rap-singing without losing the emotional center. As she puts it, “My sound is really driven by my voice.”
She started early. At 12, Chantey recorded her first song, “Shooting Star,” and it spread around her town. It became the kind of track that, in her words, “everyone had… on their phone.” Then her father pushed back, not because he didn’t believe in her. But because he understood the cost of the industry, especially for an artist navigating more than one culture at once.
Either way, it pushed her toward a lesson she’d eventually make her own: if she wanted this life, she’d have to build it with her own hands. “So I went into a gospel choir and found my voice through the community,” she says of joining the renowned Tensta Gospel Choir before moving to Los Angeles at 19 to study music and sharpen her craft. That chapter stretched her: different expectations, sharper critique, faster pace. It also gave her the confidence to fully claim her artistic identity on her own terms.
Still, momentum doesn’t always move in a straight line. A 360 record deal that soured, and the passing of her sister at the end of 2023, reshaped everything. Chantey returned to Sweden from the U.S. in 2024 and briefly considered stepping back from music altogether. Instead, she began rebuilding with more control: releasing independently and doing the unglamorous work behind the scenes to make sure the vision stays hers.
That’s why 2026 feels like the real opening chapter, despite having put in years of work. There’s music sitting on hard drives. These are songs that belong to earlier eras of her life, and even moments fans might recognize — like the viral “Sweet Talk”, or her collaboration with Uganda’s Navio, or those " why-did-it-not-go-viral " moments that hint at how long she’s been doing this work. Now she’s ready to close the gap between what she’s made and what people can actually hear.
“This year, I'm going to release my first full-length project,” she says. “Having very little music out feels like having a book where no one gets to ever open it. They just read the cover and the title. And I know what’s in the book, and I just want to show people.”
“Nobody,” the latest single, is the next page turned. With a video dropping in February, the song was written in Atlanta and paired with visuals that were shot in Uganda.
And that hands-on approach is the point–for now. She is preparing to go all out again. This time, it is with discernment and wisdom. It’s about building the world herself, despite the obstacles: “I've always done me regardless, though. I live with that crippling fear, and then I do it anyway. I have this crazy ambition and drive, and there's nobody who's going to get in the way of that, like ever.”
