DnB Goes ‘Stateside’: PinkPantheress Conquers The U.S.

The first time PinkPantheress (born Victoria Beverley Walker) went viral, she was still a student at “uni” (The University of the Arts in London), where she studied film. While in school, she would produce songs using GarageBand, upload them to SoundCloud and eventually break through to the mainstream via TikTok. PinkPantheress’s first officially released song was “Out Here,” which came out on Feb. 26, 2019, and she followed that with notable breakout hits like “Passion” (February 2021) and “Break It Off (June 2021), quickly gaining popularity on the same platforms that have launched many other artists in the business.

The 24-year-old English singer born of a Kenyan mother and English father, currently sits at 23.5 million monthly listeners on Spotify and 4.7 million followers on TikTok, placing her in a group of Gen Zers who first rose to popularity on the social media platform, artists such as Lil Nas X, Addison Rae and Alex Warren, leading to a full-blown touring career. 

In February 2023, she released a remix of her 2022 single “Boy’s a Liar” featuring Ice Spice. It debuted at No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100, marking PinkPantheress’ first time appearing on the chart, and later peaked at No. 3 in the U.S. and No. 2 on the U.K, Charts. Her song “Illegal,” which was released in May 2025, debuted at No. 96 on the Billboard Hot 100, marking her first solo entry on the chart. She appeared on the “Barbie Movie” soundtrack with the song “Angel.” 

“I still use TikTok a fair amount,” PinkPantheress says of the social media platform. “I use it to try out which songs people really want, and see their opinions. It’s still very much useful as it was back in the day.” 

Back in the day, well before TikTok, there was drum and bass, an electronic dance music genre combining skittery syncopated beats, reverberating bass lines with high-speed funk and soul breaks dating back to the early ’90s that, for a minute, was the next big thing. PinkPantheress recognizes that her sound often fits in more with those at home in the U.K., and as she travels the globe on tour, she notices some fans’ unfamiliarity with the music and culture.

“Drum and bass and garage were birthed outside of America,” PinkPantheress says. “So, I suppose even though the influences are all from America, the things that birthed drum and bass and garage are more associated with the U.K. or even Australia and New Zealand. Canada, for some reason, has a lot of roots in drum and bass.

“I don’t think people, especially the majority of American fans, would consider me electronic or drum and bass. I think a lot of them call me hyper-pop or just pop. And, I think in the U.K., people would say it’s two-step or garage or drum and bass. In the U.K., they understand the culture behind getting down to that kind of stuff. I think, especially in L.A., it’s quite hard. In New York, they kind of get it, but L.A. is quite difficult.”

PinkPantheress’ manager, Phoebe Gold at Upclose Management, says that despite the genre’s lack of popularity or understanding stateside, PinkPantheress’ U.S. fanbase has grown exponentially over the last few years. When she first stepped onto the scene in 2022, she had a Y2K aesthetic that appealed to Gen Z, wrapping a nostalgic feel in more modern sound production. Her tracks push that ’90s and Y2K sound even more forward – for example, she incorporates The Basement Jaxx’s early-2000s banger “Romeo” into “Girl Like Me” to create an irresistible dancefloor jam, and Underworld’s “Dark Train” is sampled on her current hit, “Illegal.”

“The U.S. is so vast and you’re able to do so much there,” Gold says. “PinkPantheress’ biggest streaming country, for as long as I can remember, has been the U.S. I think there’s an excitement there because a younger audience feels like they’re hearing something familiar yet current.” 

While in high school, before she was PinkPantheress, Walker performed in a rock band she claims as part of her “emo phase,” covering acts like Paramore and Green Day. As she adopted her PinkPantheress moniker, she fell in love with the high-speed sound of U.K. garage and drum and bass, and found its style lent itself nicely to her own vocals.

“It’s not singing,” she explains. “It’s just my voice doing all of these weird vocal inflections, which it mostly lent itself to, but also I grew up with the genre.”

But, when it comes to dancing, PinkPantheress admits that sometimes audiences are still learning how to move to her music. “I think some people aren’t sure how to really be in my crowds,” she observes.

PinkPantheress is booked by WME, and her upcoming tour, “An Evening With PinkPantheress,” is being promoted by Live Nation’s Kelly Chappell. Kicking off on Sept. 18 with two nights at O2 Academy Brixton in England. The U.S. run continues with multiple theater plays in each city as PinkPantheress eschews arenas in favor of classic theaters. She’s doing two nights at Kings Theatre in Brooklyn, Toronto’s famed Massey Hall, Chicago’s Byline Bank Aragon Ballroom and three nights at L.A.’s Wiltern. She wraps her trek in the Bay Area with one night at The Masonic in San Francisco on Nov. 12 and Oakland’s Fox Theater Nov. 13. There’s good reason for her theater multiples approach for this tour.

“I have stage fright, so I find it easier to perform in smaller venues; this way I feel a bit less overwhelmed by the size,” PinkPantheress admits. “In smaller venues, it helps that I can see each member of the audience fairly close up. I can interact and talk to them.”

With five headline reports submitted to Pollstar’s Boxoffice, PinkPantheress has sold a total of 13,290 tickets, grossing an impressive $516,740. She joined Olivia Rodrigo on select dates for the “Guts World Tour” last summer, but dropped out of some dates citing health issues.

She’s been upfront about her experience with hearing loss, reporting in 2022 that she’s 80% deaf in her right ear. To combat her tinnitus, she keeps on Bose headphones to help drown out the ringing. When she first began experiencing this, she canceled shows and pulled out of commitments. But now, PinkPantheress says she’s learned how to manage it so it’s less detrimental to her ability to create and perform.

She first noticed her tinnitus during a soundcheck, where the ringing came and never ceased. “Once you lose a sense, other senses get heightened,” she says. “I ended up being fairly okay performing live. Now, I’m just used to it. But there was a bit of messing around with the settings of my microphone and stuff.”

The upcoming trek was inspired by PinkPantheress’ two-night run at Brooklyn Paramount on April 14 and 15, 2024, which was sold out,  incredibly well-reviewed, and became something of a template for the “Evening With PinkPantheress Tour.”

“There’s something special about doing the same show multiple times in the same city,” Gold says. “We felt it when she did two sold-out shows at Brooklyn Paramount last year: getting to know a stage intimately is a different experience. We wanted to lead with venues that felt theatrical and grand yet intimate.”

These two and three-night “residencies” help ease travel anxiety for PinkPantheress, who admits it can sometimes get in the way of touring.

“I have a big fear of planes, so sometimes it’s about finding a route that means I don’t have to be on a plane for more than six hours,” PinkPantheress says. “I have to make multiple layovers because I can’t sit on one plane for that long.”

It was on Olivia Rodrigo’s tour that PinkPantheress realized she preferred not playing arenas, saying her sound fits in better with more intimate venues.

“The conversations for this run started earlier this year,” Live Nation’s Chappell says. “We wanted residencies rather than a full city-by-city tour, and in theaters rather than arenas. Her last tour sold out easily, so she could have gone into bigger rooms, but she loves the intimacy.”

PinkPantheress and Chappell recently attended a show for Cleo Sol at the Hollywood Bowl, where the promoter shared her thoughts with the young singer.  “She could sell that venue out, Chappell says, “but she prefers her shows to feel like you’re in a cool club with her, finishing the night off dancing in her kitchen. That intimacy and relatability are very real for her.”

So real is it that it’s part of the secret to her growing success. “What makes her special is that she’s shy in real life and that makes for thoughtful, playful performances with a laid-back appeal; like she’s whisking you away for a good time and a catch-up,” Chappell says. “She just wants you to enjoy the music. Her quips are unrehearsed, her tongue-in-cheek jokes make you feel like part of the moment and blend easily with her bedroom pop. There really isn’t another artist like her. She will be a massive pop star – but right now, she’s enjoying the journey and taking you along with her as she grows, much like Lilly Allen did back in the early noughties.” 

As she heads into the tour, she and her team are going over stage designs and finding choreographers. She won’t have a full band with her on this run; instead, she’ll perform with a drummer and a DJ. When speaking with Pollstar, PinkPantheress admits she’s on her break following her lauded festival appearances at Glastonbury and Way Out West earlier this summer. For this trek, she wants to show fans that she’s also a good technical performer, and she’s looking forward to performing her songs “Stateside” and “Girl Like Me” off of her May mixtape, Fancy That. 

Leading up to her performances, PinkPantheress says she likes to go through her days as normally as possible. In the past, she would spend the lead-up to each show preparing for the night ahead, but she has learned that only triggers her anxiety. Now, she spends her days in bed watching and doing vocal warm-up videos on YouTube. Following each performance, she’ll check her phone and see what her fans have to say about the show.

But, while she’s on stage, nothing beats the fan interaction.

“Crowd work is quite fun,” she says. “That’s my favorite part.”

This summer, she landed on a festival run, with her and her team most impressed with the crowd at Way Out West in Slottsskogen, Sweden, on Aug. 7. PinkPantheress went into the show expecting the crowd to be more tame, as that’s what she’d heard from Swedes she’d spoken to ahead of the performance. Instead, she found the opposite.

“The crowd was actually insane,” PinkPantheress says. “They were so energetic and, sometimes with some crowds you perform to, you never know how much they’re going to move. Our generation, I suppose, doesn’t move as much as they used to back in the day. For the younger audiences, it’s harder for them to understand the whole dancing thing. Especially with my music. But festivals these days have gotten bonkers with this type of music. I know he’s not drum and bass, but artists like Fred again.., or Nia Archives, who is drum and bass – they’re all British. When people come over, they know what to do.”