PinkPantheress accepts the Producer of the Year award at Billboard Women In Music 2024.
PinkPantheress:
Hi. To show my appreciation for this award, I think it’s important to mention my roots as a producer. I was at university in a dorm room — oh, my hearts beating really quickly — when I decided there was no way graduating university was going to make me happy in the long run. But I was simultaneously too shy to admit that I wanted to be a musician. Because of this, I had to make music in private and not tell anyone.
For my first year as an artist, I was anonymous. I never thought I’d be recognized as a producer, because I didn’t think I was really producing anything because I was writing and singing over drum and bass and jungle beats that were already known in great length in the U.K. Only as my music started to develop did I think of adding my own drums, my own keys, until I was making some beats from scratch. That’s when I finally felt comfortable calling myself a producer.
Oh, girl. OK, sorry, this is the last bit. It’s painful for all of us. Oh, God. Stop, guys, stop! Please! I’m shaking.
OK, as a woman of color in electronic music, specifically two-step, drum and bass, it’s taken a lot for the genre to be recognized on a wider scale. A lot of people didn’t expect me to look the way I did making the music I was making. And nobody, even now, people don’t want to take my music seriously, but I’m just happy that I have the opportunity to be recognized in this specific field by the Billboard Women in Music Awards.
I watched Rosalia get this last year and that’s my queen. So I’m just … and as much as this is an event for the women, the girlies tonight, I do need to give a shout-out to Mura Masa, who guided me with my musical direction and who deserves to be recognized for his influence through my music and to his own, so thank you everybody here!
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