PinkPantheress Leaves the Bedroom for the Wider Pop World
The British producer, singer and songwriter PinkPantheress, 22, emerged during the pandemic with a hushed and nostalgic play on dance music, turning canny samples from the club and beyond into intimate, original bedroom pop.With the release last year of her hit single “Boy’s a Liar,” and especially the remix with the rising rapper Ice Spice, PinkPantheress traded a growing internet cult for mainstream cachet, with billions of plays on TikTok and Spotify.On Friday, the singer released “Heaven Knows,” her official debut album — “To Hell With It,” from 2021, was called a mixtape — and its personnel reveals an artist open to further expansion: There are features from the Afrobeats star Rena and Central Cee, the U.K. rapper of the moment, along with production from hitmakers across genres, including Greg Kurstin, BNYX, Cash Cobain and Danny L. Harle. For the first time, the songs also tend to exceed two minutes.Yet even while leaving the confines of her bedroom, spiritually and sonically, “Heaven Knows” feels firmly like PinkPantheress’s turf and her terms. Committed to her own personal privacy, she has maintained some anonymity and the mystique that comes with it, while sticking close to frequent collaborators like the producer Mura Masa, who touches every track.On this week’s Popcast, a conversation about the unusual rise of PinkPantheress, her new album “Heaven Knows” and the art of sampling well in a time of unartful sampling.Guests:Kemi Alemoru, a freelancer culture writer for GQ, i-D, Vogue, The Guardian and othersLindsay Zoladz, a New York Times pop music critic and writer of The Amplifier newsletter More
