Culture
06 Jan 22

TikTok breakout star PinkPantheress wins BBC Sound of 2022

PinkPantheress credits Doja Cat for her decision to pursue music as a career, and was inspired to post her songs on TikTok by Lil Nas X's rise to fame through social media.

PinkPantheress has been named the winner of BBC Music’s Sound of 2022 Poll.

Speaking on her win, the 21-year-old Bath native said: “i am so happy to be chosen for the bbc sound of 2022, to be put up against such amazing musicians has been an honour and i just hope that i fulfill the people’s expectations of me this year."

Previous winners of the prize include Adele, Sam Smith, Ellie Goulding, HAIM, Years & Years, Ray BLK and Sigrid. The acts that appear on the BBC Sound Of poll are all hand-picked by a panel of impartial music industry experts from around the world.

2021 saw PinkPantheress take the internet and world by storm. While attending university in London, the record producer, singer-songwriter and rapper posted several viral songs to TikTok (including 'Break It Off') and subsequently signed to Parlophone and Elektra Records.

A snippet of her song 'Just a Waste', posted in December 2020, also went viral on TikTok despite her Soundcloud uploads attracting little attention. Later the following year, her single 'Pain' peaked at number 35 on the UK Singles Chart.

On October 15th, PinkPantheress released her debut mixtape To hell with it, featuring fan-favourites ‘Pain’, ‘Passion’, ‘Break It Off’ and recent hit ‘Just For Me’.

Her music has been described as bedroom pop, dance, alt-pop, drum and bass, and hyperpop, and often uses samples of other songs, such as dance music from the 1990s and 2000s and jungle, funk, UK garage, and pop songs. The rising star uses topline writing to write her songs, which are frequently short in length.

The young act has listed My Chemical Romance, Lily Allen, Just Jack, Michael Jackson, Kaytranada, Imogen Heap, and K-pop songs as inspirations, also citing Blink-182, Good Charlotte, Green Day, early Panic! at the Disco, Linkin Park, and Frou Frou as inspirations for her melodies and beat choices. She credits seeing Hayley Williams perform with Paramore at Reading & Leeds festival in 2015 for influencing her decision to become an artist.

Listen to To hell with it below: