Kim Petras.Photo: Jason Al-Taan
Kim Petrasis rewriting the pop-star playbook.
After more than a decade of hustling, the pop singer-songwriter notched her first Billboard No. 1 last month, with theSam Smithcollab “Unholy,” making Petras the first known transgender artist totop the Hot 100 chart.
The feat “is a huge middle finger to all the [record] labels that were like, ‘We don’t know how to market you,’ and to everyone who doubted me and said I couldn’t achieve this because of my gender identity,” says Petras, who released her latest single, “If Jesus Was a Rockstar,” on Friday. “Look at me now, bitches!”
Raised near Cologne, Germany, Petras was bullied as a child and found solace in pop music at a young age.
“When I was a kid and I didn’t get along with anyone in school, I would just put my headphones on and escape,” she says.
Her path has been a difficult one. After securing a publishing deal, Petras tried, unsuccessfully, to sign with a record label early on in her career.
“Ten years ago, the world was very different. That’s when I started going around to record labels, and a lot of f—ed up things were said to me,” Petras recalls. “I was told, ‘You will never make it in this industry.’ I was treated very unfairly.”
Despite the pushback, she continued to grind, releasing music independently. Petras — who in 2017 first found streaming success with her dance-pop single “I Don’t Want It at All” — has built a passionate, primarily LGBTQ fan base. In the years since, she’s released beloved singles (“Heart to Break”); major collabs (“Broken Glass” with Kygo," “Unlock It” withCharli XCX); her debut album,Clarity; a Halloween-themed project,Turn Off the Light; and, last February, the controversialSlutPopEP.
Kim Petras.Jamie McCarthy/Getty
The latter ruffled some feathers, even among fans.
“I want people to find it offensive and struggle with it because I feel like, especially being trans, I’ve always been someone who offends people just because I’m trans. So I’ve gotten around to the fun side of that, testing people’s limits and seeing what reaction I can get out of people,” Petras says of the sex-positive project, which she made specifically for her queer fans. “Slut Popis for my core fans. I was a club kid at the beginning of my career; I will always be a club kid. I think as a part of that community — as someone who’s always at gay bars, who’s always found felt only accepted in gay clubs and gay bars — that was my goal withSlut Pop, for it to play there and to live there.”
“[Given] the nature of sex work in the trans community, I wanted to empower people to be the freaks that they are and make it normal,” she says. “I am very lucky that I have parents that supported my transition. If I didn’t, I would’ve probably ended up in sex work to afford my transition, which is what happens to most or a lot of transgender people. And I wanted to take the shame out of it.”
And Petras felt she reclaimed her sexuality and autonomy with the EP, too.
“There’s so many men who share what they think sexuality should be that I just think it coming from me, and me demanding what sexuality is for me or what I fantasize about is just something that’s empowered my fans,” Petras says. “I think a lot of people don’t take it seriously when girls, and trans girls, have fun with the sexuality. But I take it seriously. I think it’s an art to make fun, sexy music as a woman and I think it’s empowering.”
Kim Petras and Sam Smith.Christopher Polk/Getty
Petras channeled that same energy into “Unholy,” her collab with longtime pal Smith.
“I’m really grateful to Sam because Sam’s been a supporter from the start. We’ve been sending songs back and forth for about four years. There have been a lot of songs that we considered, but we just waited for the right moment and the right song to come along, and that really paid off,” she says of the track, which also made Smith the first openly nonbinary artist to notch a No. 1 hit on the Hot. 100. “We knew the song was special from the moment we birthed it.”
Scoring a No. 1 has long been a dream for Petras.
Kim Petras, “If Jesus Was a Rockstar”.Jason Al-Taan
The song — about reclaiming her spirituality — is a departure for Petras, who says she adopted various personas on her previous projects.
“I always have a character for each of my little eras, and I transform into different versions of myself. ‘If Jesus Was a Rockstar’ is the first time I’m not having a character and I’m just being a real person in the real world and sharing my real heart and mind and how I feel in the world,” Petras says. “I never felt like I was good enough to just be myself. I always felt like I needed to make something more outrageous … because I am not interesting enough. I’m happy I got over that. It’s not a character — it’s just me. And it really is a bar song. I definitely want to bump this s— at a bar and sing along to it.”
Adds Petras: “Spirituality is hard as an LGBTQ person because I never really felt accepted. So the song is basically saying, if religion was inclusive and equal, maybe I would have a better relationship with it.”
“Rockstar” also marks a new era for Petras, who revealed this summer that another album she had recorded,Problématique,had been scrapped.
“It’s what I cooked up during lockdown. All I wanted to do was to escape, so I madeProblématique, which was this super Euro-pop, gay pop explosion, which I adore and love and I worked very hard on and am very proud of. But it just felt like the moment had come for me to say something different than that,” Petras says of the album, which included the singles “Future Starts Now” and “Coconuts.” “I signed to Republic Records, I started working with so many amazing creative people, and I just started having new things to say, and I just took a turn, and thenProblématiqueleaked. I just was in a moment with my music where I felt like I really wanted to switch it up and I was a little bored of making club songs, especially afterSlut Pop.”
Adds Petras: “I will always love singing about designer clothes and about clubs and about parties and about being a bitch and who gets whatever she wants: I love those characters and those are so fun and I think it’s so necessary for me to play those out and escape a lot of the times. But it was time to just be here in the present and say something meaningful to me.”
Now with “If Jesus Was a Rockstar,” Petras hopes to reach new listeners and be taken seriously for her craft.
“I’m a trans artist — cool, great, but can you compare me to my peers? Can we talk about my songwriting? Can we talk about how hard I’ve hustled and how good my shows have become?” she says. “I just want to be treated equally. I want to be seen as just another pop star.”
source: people.com
