潘PAN

潘PAN
General Information
Name	Pan Wei Ju
Born	24 Aug 1990 (age 34)
Artist Information
Stage Name	潘PAN
Occupation	Musician • Singer • Songwriter
Based In	Taiwan
Labels	Transgressive Records
Streaming
Apple Music	潘PAN
Spotify	潘PAN
YouTube	潘PAN
SoundCloud	@panthepansexual
Social Media
Websites	panthepanmusic
Twitter	@panthepanmusic
Instagram	@pan_the_pansexual

Pan Wei Ju (Mandarin: 潘韋儒; born 24 Aug 1990), known professionally as 潘PAN and formerly Aristophanes, is a Taiwanese rapper.

Biography

潘PAN was born and raised in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan. Growing up in a home without a television or music, she read books and initially wanted to become a novelist. She explained: "My mother doesn't like music so I knew nothing about Taiwanese or Chinese pop singers. I didn't grow up in an environment where I can be into music so I heard nothing before the first time I heard the Mandarin rap song" at the age of 20. After listening to tracks from rapper Soft Lipa, she decided to start making her own music. Other rappers she enjoys include Dan Bao and Jean Grae, and she cited the latter as an inspiration for her style of flow. She says that her former stage name Aristophanes, taken from the Ancient Greek playwright, appeared to her in a dream.

Artistry

潘PAN raps in Mandarin. Critics have noted her "rapid fire" delivery and her vocals, which are often described as simulatenously cute and creepy. Her songs tackle topics such as love, sex, and relationships, but also feminism, the decay of civilisation, and critiques of capitalism. Her lyrics often take influence from literature and philosophy. Her music was described as a "soundscape of sinister, spaced-out beats, hazy synths and sickly-sweet melodies". Despite the language barrier, she has gained an audience outside of Taiwan. She believes that "music itself is a language" and that "you can tell the emotion from the breath and the beat". 潘PAN, much like Grimes, has described her difficulties evolving in a male-dominated industry. She has criticised the way the music industry fails to give credit to female producers and praised women who work on the technical side of music, which she feels is "good for the whole community, not just women but everyone".

Connection to Grimes

Grimes became aware of 潘PAN after finding her music on SoundCloud and later reached out to the rapper to ask her if she wanted to collaborate on a project. At the time, 潘PAN did not know who Grimes was, but she accepted to work with her after researching her online. She said of Grimes's music that "it blew my mind". Their work resulted in the song "SCREAM", which was released on Grimes's fourth studio album Art Angels (2015). 潘PAN appeared in a YouTube mini-documentary from The FADER about Art Angels, doing a Skype call with Grimes. In 2017, Grimes produced the song "人為機器 (Humans Become Machines)" from 潘PAN's debut album of the same name. The two musicians collaborated again on the song "Darkseid" from Grimes's fifth studio album Miss Anthropocene (2020).