PinkPantheress Bio
Victoria Beverley Walker, known professionally as PinkPantheress, is a British singer-songwriter and record producer who has reshaped modern pop with her short, sample-driven songs. Emerging from the UK underground in 2021, she blends UK garage, drum and bass, and 1990s–2000s nostalgia into a sound she has called “New Nostalgia.” Her bedroom-produced tracks first spread through SoundCloud and TikTok, and within a few years she had charted internationally, won a Brit Award, and been named Billboard Women in Music Producer of the Year. PinkPantheress continues to be recognized as one of the most distinctive new voices in British pop and electronic music.
Born in Bath and raised in Canterbury, PinkPantheress built her career while studying in London, posting short songs she had produced on GarageBand. Her debut mixtape To Hell with It (2021) and her first studio album Heaven Knows (2023) established her as a leading figure in alternative pop, while her 2025 mixtape Fancy That expanded her global audience. She is also a noted record producer, and in 2026 she became the youngest artist and the first woman to win the Brit Award for British Producer of the Year.
Early Life and Background
Victoria Beverley Walker was born on 19 April 2001 in Bath, Somerset, England, to a Luo mother from Kisumu, Kenya, who works as a carer, and an English father who is a statistics professor. When she was five years old, her family moved from Bath to Canterbury, Kent, where she grew up. Her father later moved to the United States to work at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas, when she was twelve, while she and her mother remained in the UK. She has a brother who works as an audio engineer, and she is the niece of English chess player Susan Lalic. Walker has said that her family are all chess players and that she would have become a chess player herself if she had not pursued music.
As a child, Walker took piano lessons and, at the age of twelve, sang “Stand by Me” by Ben E. King at a school talent show. When she was fourteen, she became the lead singer in a rock band that covered songs by My Chemical Romance, Paramore, and Green Day, performing with them for the first time at a school fête. She has credited Hayley Williams of Paramore, whom she saw perform at Reading Festival, as a major influence on her decision to become a professional musician, and she has also cited Imogen Heap, Lily Allen, Kelela, Kate Nash, Kaytranada, and Frank Ocean as inspirations. In July 2025, she received an honorary doctorate in Music from the University of Kent.
Path to Music
Walker began writing music in high school to help a friend before eventually writing on her own. At seventeen, she started using GarageBand to produce instrumentals for her friend, fellow singer Mazz, and she later recorded many of her early songs while lying down in her university hall late at night. She studied film at the University of the Arts London, though she dropped out in 2022 to focus on her music career. Her stage name, PinkPantheress, was taken from a TikTok account inspired by a question from the game show The Chase and by The Pink Panther film series.
She started uploading original songs to SoundCloud under the name PinkPantheress, and a snippet of her song “Just a Waste,” which used the instrumental from Michael Jackson’s “Off the Wall,” went viral on TikTok in December 2020. In 2021, two of her songs, the Adam F-sampling “Break It Off” and the Sweet Female Attitude-sampling “Pain,” also went viral on TikTok, with “Pain” peaking at number thirty-five on the UK Singles Chart. That same year, she signed to Parlophone and Elektra Records, laying the foundation for her rapid rise within the British music industry.
PinkPantheress Career
Early Career (2019–2021)
PinkPantheress’s debut mixtape, To Hell with It, was released on 15 October 2021 through Parlophone and Elektra Records and debuted at number twenty on the UK Albums Chart. The project was preceded by the singles “Pain,” “Break It Off,” “Just for Me,” “Passion,” and “I Must Apologise.” Her collaboration with producer Mura Masa, “Just for Me,” peaked at number twenty-seven on the UK Singles Chart, earned her nominations at the iHeartRadio Music Awards, the Ivor Novello Awards, and the NME Awards, and helped define the “New Nostalgia” sound she had coined. During this period, she performed live for the first time in London in October and November 2021.
She was also featured on GoldLink’s song “Evian” from his album Haram! and appeared on tracks with artists including Mura Masa, Lil Uzi Vert, and Shygirl on “Bbycakes.” These early collaborations positioned her as a sought-after voice in the UK pop and electronic scenes, even as she remained primarily known for her solo work. By the end of 2021, she had established herself as a leading new artist in British music.
Breakthrough (2022–2024)
In January 2022, PinkPantheress was announced as the winner of BBC’s Sound of 2022 poll, one of the most respected indicators of emerging British talent. That same month, she released a remix album for To Hell with It. She was nominated for Song of the Year at the 42nd Brit Awards for “Obsessed With You” by Central Cee, which sampled her song “Just for Me,” and she gave a virtual performance on Roblox for the ceremony. She also toured Europe in support of To Hell with It and opened for Halsey on the American leg of the Love and Power Tour in spring 2022.
In February 2023, she released “Boy’s a Liar Pt. 2” with American rapper Ice Spice, a remix of her 2022 single “Boy’s a Liar.” After gaining traction on TikTok, the song debuted at number fourteen on the US Billboard Hot 100, becoming her first appearance on the chart, and later peaked at number three. It also peaked at number two on the UK Singles Chart, becoming her highest-charting single, and was certified platinum by the RIAA, marking her first RIAA certification. The track was nominated for two BET Awards, an MTV EMA, and a Streamy Award.
Her debut studio album, Heaven Knows, was released on 10 November 2023 and charted in ten countries. The album spawned the UK top-twenty single “Nice to Meet You” and featured the singles “Mosquito,” “Capable of Love,” and “Nice to Meet You.” In February 2024, she was honored as Producer of the Year by Billboard Women in Music. She opened for Olivia Rodrigo on the Guts World Tour in summer 2024 before cancelling her remaining live performances in August of that year, citing health reasons.
Notable Works and Milestones
PinkPantheress’s signature work remains To Hell with It, the 2021 mixtape that announced her sound to a global audience and produced the standout singles “Just for Me,” “Pain,” and “Break It Off.” Her debut album Heaven Knows (2023) marked a step into longer-form songwriting, while the 2025 mixtape Fancy That reached number three on the UK Albums Chart and earned two Grammy nominations. Her collaborations, including “Boy’s a Liar Pt. 2” with Ice Spice and her Brit Award win in 2026, stand as defining moments of her career so far.
PinkPantheress Award Nominations
PinkPantheress has received numerous award nominations across her career, recognizing her work as a singer, songwriter, and producer. Her nominations include the Brit Award for Song of the Year at the 42nd Brit Awards, multiple NME Awards, an Ivor Novello Award, an iHeartRadio Music Award, two BET Awards, an MTV EMA, and a Streamy Award for “Boy’s a Liar Pt. 2.” In 2025, she earned two Grammy Award nominations for her work on Fancy That, including Best Dance Pop Recording for “Illegal” and Best Dance Electronic Album. She has also been nominated at the Brit Awards for British Producer of the Year, a category she would go on to win in 2026.
PinkPantheress Awards Won
PinkPantheress has been honored with several major awards recognizing both her artistry and her production work. In 2022, she won BBC’s Sound of 2022 poll, one of the most prestigious early-career awards in British music. In 2024, she was named Producer of the Year at the Billboard Women in Music ceremony. In 2026, she won the Brit Award for British Producer of the Year, becoming the youngest artist and the first woman to receive the award.
PinkPantheress Family
PinkPantheress was born to a Luo mother from Kisumu, Kenya, who works as a carer, and an English father who is a statistics professor. She has a brother who works as an audio engineer, and she is the niece of English chess player Susan Lalic. Her father moved to the United States to work at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas, when she was twelve years old, while she and her mother remained in the UK. She has said that her family are all chess players and that she would have become a chess player herself if she had not pursued music.
Personal Life
PinkPantheress has spoken openly about experiencing body dysmorphia from a young age. She also lives with hearing loss, which began as tinnitus caused by exposure to loud microphone feedback; she reported being eighty percent deaf in her right ear in 2022 and has described voices as sounding “mostly like bass.” In 2024, she cancelled her remaining live performances, citing health reasons. She is known for keeping much of her personal life private, and no public information about long-term partners or children has been confirmed.