written by NICOLAIA RIPS
photography BYRON SPENCER
styled by PINK AND TEAM
In the 49-year broadcast history of the BRIT Awards, the much coveted Producer of the Year has gone to a variety of generational talents creating genre-defining sounds: Brian Eno, George Martin (of the Beatles), Paul Epworth, David A. Stewart, and most recently A.G. Cook. Only once has the award ever been given to a person of color (Inflo in 2022), and never to a woman. That changes this year with PinkPantheress.
Music production is an area of the industry still resistant to women—wrongly perceived as too technical, too particular, and too much of a boys club. Over the past decade female producers have made up a shockingly small percentage (2.8%) of Billboard’s Hot 100 Year-End Chart, and women of color an even slimmer percentage of that. The only solo female musician to ever even be nominated for the BRIT’s Producer of the Year was Kate Bush in 1990.
Victoria Beverley Walker, the 24-year-old British musician better known as PinkPantheress, has been breaking barriers in electronic music since she first arrived on the scene armed with her debut mixtape To Hell With It. Over the past couple years, her sound, which she’s dubbed “New Nostalgia,” has solidified into something singularly bright, utterly Gen Z, and immediately recognizable as Walker’s work. Currently there’s the sense that anything she touches goes platinum—from her recent mixtape Fancy That (in addition to nabbing her producer of the year, it also saw her two Grammy nominations), to her remixes with other exciting musicians like Zara Larsson or Ice Spice. To be a proudly British artist recognized at such a level by her home nation doesn’t go unnoticed—Walker wears her tartan on her sleeve. As a young woman of color working in the electronic music space, her ascent from a bedroom popstar mixing on Garageband, intent on preserving her anonymity, to a full-fledged producer breaking records, is a win not just for Walker but for the future of the music industry. We caught up with Walker to chat about the honor in an exclusive interview.
Congratulations, so so so well deserved! What’s the first thing that went through your head when you found out you were awarded Producer of the Year?
PinkPantheress: I mean, I’m still sort of ecstatic. Any bit of recognition, I always treat it in high esteem, no matter what it is. So, yeah, I’m really happy.
Early on, anonymity felt like such a big part of your identity as an artist, and now you’re breaking records. How has your relationship with visibility and recognition evolved since you started making music?
Being recognized is really fab. I think being from the UK as well, it’s not as common. We don’t really make as much noise when it comes to things that we should celebrate about ourselves. But when it does happen, it feels extra special. I think that the BRITS are a really good way to do that. I don’t think that we have a lot of things to celebrate us, as a community, especially in the music industry. You’ve got the Ivor Novellos, the BRITS, and the MOBOs. The BRITS are always a really good evening to come together and celebrate. The music industry in the UK is small, but it’s so powerful.
Can you tell me a little bit about your relationship to producing and coming into yourself as a producer? Did you always think of yourself as a producer?
I guess I didn’t really recognize myself as a producer until somebody told me that I was. I was always playing and making my own beats, but I never thought of myself as a producer because I didn’t think I looked like one, and I didn’t think that I could be one. When people started being like, “You’ve produced the whole song basically, you’re playing the keys, you’re singing“… Being a producer was something made aware to me a lot later. Obviously, now I’m really happy, because production is my favorite part of making a song.
“I just want to make music that I would enjoy listening to“
If you could give advice to all the musicians and producers who do look like you and who see you as a role model, what would it be?
I’d say that even with limited resources, a lot is possible. I was in my university dorm all I really had was my laptop, which I know can be a luxury to a lot of people. Even if it’s a phone, there are apps that can help you make beats in like, five minutes. All it really takes is an idea in your head. A lot of people feel like they need to have, like, X, Y, Z, a studio, or a big budget, or people, but actually, making a beat is quite possible with just a phone.
You’ve said recently that this is the year you finally figured out how to approach life. How do you feel like your approach to life has changed? What’s your updated PinkPantheress philosophy?
I suppose I just want to make music that I would enjoy listening to, which sounds really obvious, but I think that I only want to make music that I know that I would put on myself.
Who’s the first person you send music to after you’ve made something?
Probably my manager, but I usually try to have someone in the room with me to kind of keep me on track. If not my manager, then whoever’s in the studio, if it’s like a co-producer.
Are you the kind of artist that immediately knows when something it’s done? Or are you constantly trying to tinker and change it up into the last second?
I’m definitely always trying to tinker to the last second. I’ll listen to something and I’ll be able to hear when something’s like, slightly off.
Would you ever produce something for another artist? Who is your dream collaboration?
I would love to produce for Tinashe! I think a lot of my dream collaborations I’ve already done, but Tinashe would be up there.
Who are the producers, both past and present, who have shaped how you think about sound design?
Kaytranada, Disclosure. I really like Wonder Girls’ productions.
This year alone you’ve had your first Grammy nominations, you’re playing Coachella, and you won this historic award. It feels like everything is aligning.
100%. It does feel like this project has put me further than most of my other ones.
Did you feel that while you were creating the album in the studio?
I didn’t have any ideal outcome. I just knew I definitely wanted to take it further than I had before, but I didn’t necessarily think it was going to be successful.
If you could go back and speak to yourself at the very beginning of your career, what production advice would you give?
I would say that I need to stop being worried about listening to a bad idea. Even bad ideas can turn into good ones.
Now that you’ve shattered this record, what’s next?
I would love to get into the world of film and cinema. That’s kind of my dream. But I also would love to get started on my next project.
photography assistant LACHY STIRLING
stylist assistant REBECCA HONG
special thanks ACE HOTEL SYDNEY
in lead image MASK DENIS VUCKEVIC