His Name Was Tayc: From a Staged Death to JOŸA and Vibrant Afrolove in Oslo

Last November, Tayc (pronounced "Tyke") gave his own stage name an epitaph: "Tayc. 1996–2025". Now the French-Cameroonian singer is coming to Sentrum Scene in Oslo on 11 November with JOŸA, an album built on the premise that there is joy on the other side of hardship. For listeners, Tayc once again serves as a reminder that African popular music is far more than the English-language charts out of Lagos and Accra.

Before the gravestone came an interview. On the French radio station France Inter in June 2025, Tayc said he needed to take a break from the music industry after a painful 2024. He had lost his childhood friend and manager, Kévin Corne, a man he spoke of warmly, like a brother. He talked about his family, his son, and his need to find his way back to his faith. The break could be a long one, he hinted. Perhaps indefinite.

A few months later came the video for the single "Il s'appelait Tayc" ("His Name Was Tayc"). In it, he appeared alongside family members, drove a hearse and had the years 1996–2025 written on screen. The video's drama read like a farewell letter to the artist's old life and work, but it also doubled as a teaser for a new album due in May 2026.

Where "Afro" has no single home

Tayc, born Julien Bouadjie in Marseille to Cameroonian parents, has long been hard to pigeonhole. When he established his signature sound around the NYXIA series in 2019, it got the name "afrolov'", often written "afrolove". In an interview with the Dutch outlet Puna, he recalled how his producer Nyadjiko came up with the idea: the music was, as he put it, 85 percent "afro", and the lyrics were always about love. Why not give the combination a name of its own?

The recipe sounds simple enough, but the sound itself is more layered. Tayc's voice is firmly rooted in R&B, with room for falsetto, sensual melodic lines and urban soul. Just beneath the surface, rhythms and influences from Afropop, Afrobeats, Caribbean music and, at times, West African genres such as coupé-décalé simmer. He has named Wizkid and P-Square as important inspirations himself, while also tipping his hat to Michael Jackson and T-Pain. The music can come from multiple directions simultaneously, without losing its link to his Cameroonian background.

And this is exactly where Tayc becomes interesting to a Norwegian audience. Whenever "Afro" comes up in pop music, the gaze quickly turns to Nigeria and Ghana. That's understandable, if somewhat limiting, given the global reach of the colossal phenomenon that is Afrobeats. But the soundtrack of the continent and its diaspora also includes French-language pop, with threads running between Douala, Abidjan, Paris, Brussels and other world cities. Singing mainly in French makes Tayc no less relevant to the conversation about where "Afro" music is headed.

His path to a wider audience ran through, among other things, "N'y pense plus" and the album Fleur froide in 2020. There, his soft, romantic, velvet voice met a rhythmic engine as suited to the dance floor as to headphones. "Le temps" and "D O D O" later became cornerstones of his catalogue. He has since released Room 96, a project that dropped on Valentine's Day 2023, and the collaborative album HÉRITAGE with French-Congolese star Dadju in 2024. Love has been the clearest way in, but rarely the whole story.

Joy as resistance

JOŸA, released on 15 May, is a sprawling concept album and reads as a more ambitious attempt to tell the story of Tayc. Its 20 tracks are woven together by a prologue, interludes and an epilogue. The album's symbolic universe centres on a fictional figure who holds on to joy in inhuman circumstances, inspired by a story of slavery. Tayc has linked the project to his own wounds, to a visit to Cameroon, and to the idea that joy can be something you actively tend, not just a fleeting feeling.

Musically, he has also pushed his boundaries, making more room for gospel, blues and jazz. On "Girlfriend", a clear nod to Michael Jackson's "You Rock My World" surfaces, while "Va loin" pairs him with Aya Nakamura. Masego guests on "Masterpiece", and "Koki & plantain" turns a Cameroonian food pairing into a metaphor for love. With "Maman prie", family and faith find their way into a body of work that has mostly been about romance.

The ambition is both the album's strength and its challenge. When one project has to hold love songs, spiritual searching, African history and a grand narrative of rebirth, the leaps can at times feel abrupt. The album did debut at number two in France, but in October he admitted himself that the sales had been disappointing. Sometimes, though, commercial appeal has to take a back seat to artistic integrity.

Then again, an album is more than its first-week sales. JOŸA shows an artist trying to build a bigger musical stage around what he already does best: the love song. The question is how well the new ideas translate to a live setting. And there, Tayc has an important advantage. He is both a singer and a dancer, and afrolove is as much about the body, the crowd and the connection between them as it is about any set formula for making songs.

With South Africa's Tyla set to perform at Oslo Spektrum today, and Tayc at Sentrum Scene on 11 November, this autumn offers two quite different ways into today's African-inspired pop. One takes amapiano and pop into a big arena. The other arrives with French R&B, Cameroonian roots and a genre name of his own making. The beauty of it? This is no contest over who is more "Afro", but rather a chance to widen what we mean by the prefix.

And perhaps that is where the most interesting thing about Tayc's comeback lies. In 2025, he let his stage name die on film. In 2026, he is trying to breathe new life into the music. Oslo will soon find out whether the joy of his revival holds up on the dance floor, and one suspects Tayc's infectious energy will conquer the room fast.

Fact box: Tayc in Oslo

• Who: Tayc (30), born Julien Bouadjie in Marseille on 2 May 1996, with Cameroonian family roots. Singer, songwriter and dancer, known for blending R&B, Afro-inspired rhythms and love lyrics into what he calls "afrolove". Broke through with "N'y pense plus" and Fleur froide (2020).
• Listen before the show: "N'y pense plus", "Le temps", "D O D O", "Girlfriend" and "Va loin" (with Aya Nakamura).
• Concert: Wednesday 11 November 2026, Sentrum Scene, Oslo.
• Tour: JOŸA World Tour.
• Tickets: 540 kr + 50 kr fee, 590 kr in total.
• Support: DJ Abiel Tee with Primz and Mabira.
• Age limit: 18+.