PinkPantheress Wants to Solve the Pop Equation

Aidan Zamiri / Courtesy of 300 Entertainment

During her 2024 Dublin show, PinkPantheress received a prosthetic leg from a fan. “She just gave it to me and she said, ‘Can you sign it?’ And I held it up, I signed it and then I gave it back,” she tells GQ as she runs into her hotel elevator. When you're touring in support of a ravenously-received debut album like PinkPantheress' Heaven Knows, released last fall, this is how it goes. At another show in May, a fan gifted her their wig.

Pink’s melancholic musings over frenetic breakbeats garnered her a cult fan base on TikTok in 2021. With Heaven Knows, she leaned into her signature vulnerability, “So many people say they are surprised by how dark some of my lyrics can be,” she says, when asked about the gothic undertones in her discography. “There is a slight religious tone in that the album is about journeying from hell into purgatory and being content with that.”

On a call that began in a Toronto restaurant and continued onto busy sidewalks as she made her way back to her hotel, the 23-year-old spoke with GQ about her whirlwind post-debut album year, preparing to open up for Olivia Rodrigo in June, creating a fan fiction-inspired track, and why “American Boy” by Estelle is the best pop song of all time.

GQ: Seeing your collaboration with Kelela on your debut album was so exciting, especially since you’re both East African. How did that track, “Bury Me,” come about?

PINKPANTHERESS: I've always wanted to do a song with her just because she genuinely is one of the reasons why I got into electronic music. I've always been a big Kaytranada fan and obviously, he did a remix of her song “Waitin,” and that is one of my favorite remixes ever.

So I was like, who is she? And then I just went down the massive rabbit hole of Kelela tracks, hearing her album Take Me Apart and everything. I just really love her voice especially, and the way she writes. My music taste back then was very linear and I didn't really know of too many black women that did electronic music, so I was just like, Oh my God, this woman is crazy.

It really opened my mind up to this untapped territory that I'd been missing out on. And I'm so happy I've discovered her because she is someone that I can definitely call an inspiration. She's so amazing, and she's African too.

Your song “True Romance” reminded me a lot of One Direction fan fiction. Did you have that in mind when you were making it? Did you read fan fiction?

I definitely did read fan fiction and think about fan fiction when I wrote it. I was thinking specifically about McFly. We have a band in the UK called McFly. They were definitely not as big as One Direction, but they were a real boy band like Busted. No, you wouldn’t know Busted. They were like the English Jonas Brothers, but they weren't brothers. They were just this band.

Funnily enough, the melody I used for “True Romance” in the chorus is an interpolation of a McFly song. I just kept thinking about how I felt going to see concerts when I was younger, and how I always ask my fans at the show, "Did anybody ever shave before they saw someone live just in case something happened?" And they're always like, "Yeah, yeah, I did." And I was like, "Yeah, I remember doing that too."

I just think it's such an untapped experience, going to a concert and really hoping to get with someone in the band, even though you were underage or totally not going to.

Which McFly song did you interpolate?

“Five Colors in Her Hair.” That's a big song.

I saw a recent TikTok where you talked about the “emo-to-auntie pipeline.” How has your fashion evolved from when you first started your career compared to now? How do you put an outfit together?

When I started out, I was really into emo stuff still. I really liked wearing dark clothes, more typical emo influence, I guess. So before I became an artist, my style was very auntie-ish because I borrowed a lot of clothes from my mom.

But then when I became an artist, I felt like I needed to look like an artist and dress like one so I kind of forced myself to look a different way. And then only last year did I realize, oh, I should just dress the way I want to. And I did, I started dressing how I wanted to, and then people were making fun of me and saying I dress either really badly or I dress like a mom or an auntie. Then I was like, but that's kind of what people have been saying my whole life so I wasn't too affected by it. I actually think it's so fun.

Also, I always say it's better to have your own style. It's better to have people say that than have a style that no one can comment on. So I'm still fine with it now, so yeah.

Also, of course, you've been asked about your bag, but I wanted to know what's your favorite bag. What makes a bag a great bag to carry around on stage?

Size is important. It can't be too big because it needs to be out of the way enough for me to perform. I think an eye-catching design that's made craftily, an original design. And then honestly the way that it closes. What kind of closing, does it have a zip, a magnet, a button?

That's another thing, I usually tend to go for more of a zipped [bag] because nothing can come out. So the sort of things I look at. But I do have a vast collection and it's growing even more. I've been going to gas stations on tour and they have some really nice bags.

What do you notice about the differences in audiences in the US versus the UK?

I think a lot of people in America get surprised when they find out that people in their teens, 14, 15 enjoy drum and bass. I remember at my [Alexandra Palace show] there were really young people there—I would say 14 year olds. But in America, they all seem a bit older and I think it's cool, definitely. I like both. I like having young and older people.

I feel like one thing I'm surprised about overall is that people know more of my new stuff. I come to these shows and I'll be like, "Who's been around since 2021?" And only five people put their hands up and I'm like, Oh, I'm really new. I'm still really just beginning.

In my head I'm like, I've been here for fucking years. But definitely in America, I think they get more hype over here for certain songs than in Europe. I think Europe, they're a bit more stoic and they want to listen to the actual singing and stuff like that. But across the board, everyone looks good, everyone dresses well, everyone's cute. That's all I need.

And there's always one guy at the front, there's always one girl. There's always one guy at the front of all my shows and they always hella camp and they always hella into it and they love every single one. There's always one in every show, front row.

How do you approach festival sets versus your own shows?

Configuring my band and performance on this level has been such a new thing. For now, at my own shows, I definitely pay more attention to each individual crowd member. At some point, I feel like I've looked every single person in the eye at my own shows. But at festivals, it feels more like an overall. I get more of a general vibe at those things.

What's your mindset going into opening for Olivia Rodrigo? I feel people who are fans of her are fans of you and people who are fans of you are fans of her.

I feel like there's some crossover, just because we're both in the same age group and we're both cute girlies, but actually the more I think about it I feel like there's less crossover. I'm realizing slowly that people don't see my music as pop music at all, and some people really see it in their own lane, whereas Olivia is very much down-the-line pop.

I think people aren’t going to be really familiar with me at those shows, which I'm very excited about because it means I can expose new people to my music. It is also nerve-wracking because I think part of me is like, wow, are they going to even going to fuck with me?

I can't just put on a good performance at those things. I have to put on a performance where we're convincing people to listen to me. It’s a very unique thing I have to think about. But I'm really excited and I do really love her.

Do you see yourself as a pop artist?

Sometimes I do. I feel like some people, publications, and award shows really don't know where to place me and therefore because they don't know where to place me, they kind of just leave me out a lot, which is kind of frustrating.

Sometimes, I just kind of want to put myself into pop so that I could have the same opportunity as everyone else. But then in some ways, I'm like, I'm very much not a pop artist because I don't present like one, I don't really sing like one.

For sonic purposes, I definitely don't think it's pop. But I think for convenience purposes, I would just love to be called a pop artist. It just feels so much easier. But maybe that's just me probably being lazy.

Can fans expect new music soon? What direction would you want to make your new project in? Is there a genre that you want to experiment with that you haven't touched yet?

There's a pop equation right now which needs to be solved. And that's a very bizarre sentence, but no one's quite able to figure out how to do pop. And I feel like the girlies are killing pop right now, but for me personally, I want to tap into pop in a different way.

The fact that Estelle made “American Boy,” but there's never been any other song to ever sound like it to replicate the same vibe as it, to even come close to reaching it. We need to break it down. Estelle is not only Black, she's also from the UK, she's British. It's a will.i.am-produced track. She got a Kanye feature on this track. She got John Legend in the video. There are so many layers to that song that no one else has ever, no one's come close to touching it.

Wherever I'm making a song, I always think about that song. And it's not about making a song that sounds like “American Boy,” but it's about definitely tapping into something that she did when she made that song because it's never been done since. It's either her whole career or that song specifically for her, it is definitely something that I need to figure out. That's definitely just great pop. That's what I'm trying to do.

Originally Appeared on GQ