PinkPantheress canceled her performance at the Primavera Festival in Spain last June due to “partial hearing loss.”
She tweeted a message to her followers that read, “To return to the stage, I need time to heal.”
In October, however, the 21-year-old posted that years of exposure to deafening music had rendered her right ear 80% deaf.
She says, “To state the obvious, making music has become more difficult.” “But I’ve done all of my mourning already. I’ve done that.”
She explains that the deterioration “happened gradually.” “I told myself that regardless of the outcome, I would still have a functional ear. As long as you safeguard that, you will be all right.
Therefore, I strive not to think about it.
Instead, PinkPantheress is optimistic.
Statistical discovery
After gaining recognition with a succession of underground EPs and mixtapes, her single Boy’s A Liar, Pt. 2 has just broken into the top 10 for the first time.
The song reached number three on the Hot 100 in the United States, marking the greatest breakthrough for a UK act in quite some time. Back home, only 1,200 sales separate her from Miley Cyrus’s Flowers, the current market leader. She shrieks, “I didn’t even know that!”
If she succeeds in dethroning Miley Cyrus when the new chart is released on Friday, the singer has already made arrangements to celebrate.
“You realize what? “I’m going to an amusement park!” she exclaims. “I’m like, I’m in a hurry!”
A brief piece of history PinkPantheress, who was born in Bath and raised in Kent, uploaded her first song, a cover of Michael Jackson’s Just A Waste, to TikTok on December 25, 2020.
She generated buzz for the next 18 months by releasing 15-second snippets of her unfinished works and developing any songs that garnered traction with fans.
She obscured her face in videos and continues to use a pseudonym to conceal her identity. (a name attributed to her on the internet, and to which her songs are credited, is also said to be an invention).
In August of 2021, she went viral with Just For Me, an homage to the UK garage that introduced many US TikTok users to the genre.
In the fall of that year, she released her debut mixtape after being signed by Parlophone. True to her TikTok origins, its ten tracks of adolescent heartbreak lasted only 19 minutes. However, it contained as many melodic concepts and sonic inventions as a double album by some artists.
She abandoned aspects of her anonymity and embarked on a “step-up year” during which her composition and production reached a new level.
This culminated with the release of the Take Me Home EP in November, where the original solo version of Boy’s A Liar debuted.
It was created in the same manner as her breakout recordings, with PinkPantheress singing over a pre-existing track and co-written with her frequent collaborator Mura Masa.
She says, “I sat with this beat for ages, trying to determine what would work.” It took me some time to comprehend what I should do, but once I did, it made perfect sense.
It’s a song about sexist objectification inspiring confidence in a perverse manner.
In the opening verse, she sings dejectedly, “You only want to hold me when I look good enough,” before realizing that she is worth more than the male gaze.
“You are not observing me, child. I’m competent. I’m good enough.”
“It was not inspired by anything in particular,” explains the singer. It was only a song lyric.
Then, strangely enough, after the song was released, it felt as if it had a purpose.
As in?
“In other words, I suddenly realized that boys were lying to me,” she laughs. However, I’ve decided to let them live.
Accepting triumph “in stride”
After previewing the song on social media, fan reaction indicated that it would become the EP’s breakout single, and this prediction was accurate.
It has produced over 2.3 million TikTok creations and 225 million audio broadcasts to date.
She states matter-of-factly, “There hasn’t been a surprise where I’ve been like, ‘OMG, I’m not prepared!'” “I’ve been taking it in my stride.”
In January, she messaged rising Bronx MC Ice Spice and asked her to appear on a remix, catapulting the song to new heights.
“The concept was that I didn’t want it to be just a passing tune. I wished to stamp this song into this year’s culture.”
Ice Spice’s verse expands on the original, telling her tale of a boyfriend who’s giving her the runaround – a radical departure from the braggadocious, sex-centric lyrics for which she is known.
PinkPantheress concurs, “I rarely hear female rappers rapping about their insecurities.”
“I didn’t ask her, but I have the impression that [that verse] flowed from her more easily than we imagine.
When you have the chance to begin discussing that topic, you can unravel a great deal.
“Not considered serious”
Within a year and a half, the PinkPantheress sound – chirrupy, sped-up vocals; 90s and 00s samples; upbeat instrumentals, and melancholy lyrics – has become TikTok’s signature musical style.
She rejects the labels “new nostalgia” and “drum and bass revivalist” and claims her upcoming music will investigate “different soundscapes” and “genres we’re not accustomed to hearing from mainstream women”.
The obstacles women face in the music industry are a subject that makes her particularly animated. In a recent TikTok, she criticized the fact that only 2.8% of songs are produced by women, stating, “That’s unacceptable. Let’s rectify it.”
She asserts that the problem is a male-dominated industry that consciously or unconsciously intimidates younger female artists.
“As a child, I avoided entering certain rooms because I knew I wouldn’t be taken seriously,” she explains.
“When I entered the studio, there was no one who resembled me, and people didn’t pay heed, you know?
“This is what discourages [women], and I believe the best way to combat this is to create music with other women.
“When you produce music with other women, you are not in a position to feel inferior or to be treated differently due to your gender.
Then, you increase your confidence.
The past 18 months have been a steep learning trajectory in terms of her self-confidence.
Due to her emergence during the pandemic, her public persona is still evolving, and she is still finding her footing as a live performer.
Oh, certainly, she replies. “For certainly. For certainly. Undeniably, undeniably, undeniably. Yeah, it’s been a development.”
She says that filming a music video with Ice Spice helped. “There were moments when I observed her and thought, ‘Okay, so she does this?’
It was almost as if she were giving me counsel.
Boy’s A Liar signals her crossover into the mainstream, but she is not abandoning her gentle approach to her music career.
She states, “I have not begun planning [an album] at all.” “I’m just taking my time. I feel like this year has already been so crazy and hectic, so I’m taking a brief vacation.”
And possibly, depending on Friday’s position on the charts, an excursion to a theme park.
