Kim Petras

*This page uses content from the Wikipedia*

**Kim Petras** (born 27 August 1992) is a German singer and songwriter, currently based on Los Angeles, California.

Petras became subject of media coverage after undergoing gender transition at a young age, being known as "the youngest transgender person in the world." Petras began recording music as a teenager, releasing her debut extended play *One Piece of Tape* in 2011. She independently released her debut single "I Don't Want It At All" in 2017, produced by Dr. Luke, which went on to top several viral music charts on Spotify.

Following her early success, Petras released a slew of digital singles which would later comprise her unofficial body of work known as Era 1. On 1 October 2018, Petras released the Halloween-themed, novelty EP Turn Off The Light, Vol. 1. Her debut studio mixtape Clarity was released on 28 June 2019. Her first debut studio album Feed the Beast was released on 23 June 2023, after years of working to make an album.

## Early Life

Kim Petras grew up on Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. At the age of 2, Kim's parents recalled that Kim began insisting that she was a girl and her parents realized that it wasn't a phase realizing that she is transgender. Her parents were supportive but made her wear gender neutral clothing in public. Eventually, her parents sought help for her transition and they struggled to find professionals who were knowledgeable on the subject. After looking for a while, they eventually found Bernd Meyenburg at Frankfurt University who had been head of a clinic for children and has studied transsexuality since the 1970's.

In 2006 Kim became a worldwide icon for describing her transition on a German media TV show Stern TV. Kim would later be featured in 2007 on a documentary and a talk show as a push for sex reassignment surgery to be done at 16, as during that time Germany's laws had it at 18. The publicity generated from the 2007 TV appearances resulted in many news articles about her gender transition at age 12 and describing her as the "world's youngest transsexual". This assertion, however, is inaccurate, as gender identity disorder is often diagnosed in early childhood and transition by children under 12, though uncommon, is not unknown. However, Petras may have been one of the youngest people at that time to receive female hormone treatments.

In September 2007, she was a model for a nationwide chain of German hair salons. Petras turned 16 in 2008, and announced in a November 2008 post on her blog that she had recently completed her gender reassignment surgery. The story hit the news media in early February 2009, suggesting that Petras may be the youngest person in the world to have had gender reassignment surgery. In an interview about her surgery she stated "I was asked if I feel like a woman now – but the truth is I have always felt like a woman – I just ended up in the wrong body".

## Career

### **2009 - 2014: Singles and *One Piece of Tape***

Kim has always shown interest for music, writing her own songs since she was around 12 years old. Her first release that's known of is 2008's double single "Fade Away" and "When Dreams Come True," produced by Fabian Goerg. In the following year Petras released several singles digitally, that received little attention on the internet.

In 2011, after a brief hiatus, Kim released her unofficial debut extended play, *One Piece of Tape.* Kim was initially discovered internationally within the music industry and subsequently flown to Los Angeles by Producer / A&R Edward Ellis and C.J. Abraham. Throughout 2013, Petras worked with producers Steve Dresser, Johan "Jones" Wetterberg, The Stereotypes and eventually Aaron Joseph on her music career, also releasing a song called "STFU" on her SoundCloud page in 2014. For her contributions to social media, Petras was ranked at number 19 on Billboard's Artist Chart, listing developing artists, in July 2013..

### **2016 - 2019: *Era 1* and *Turn Off The Lights, Vol. 1***

In August 2017, Petras released her debut single "I Don't Want It At All". The song went on to reach the Spotify Global Viral chart. The accompanying music video for the song premiered in October on Vevo, and features a cameo appearance by Paris Hilton. In the same month, Petras was picked by Spotify to be one of the four artists named as a RISE Artist, a "program designed to identify and break the next wave of music superstars." During the end of 2017, Petras was dubbed "most likely to dominate the pop charts" by Paper magazine, and appeared on Charli XCX's mixtape Pop 2 for the track "Unlock It" alongside Jay Park. On that same year, Petras released four more singles of the later called *Era 1*, "Hillside Boys", "Hills", "Slow It Down" and "Faded".

In January 2018, the Nicholas Harwood-directed video for Petras' single "Faded", which features Lil Aaron, premiered on Noisey. Petras released the breakup-inspired "Heart To Break" in February, to commemorate Valentine's Day. The song was given its radio debut on BBC Radio 1 on 19 February. Bryan Kress of Billboard noted how while the single is "still keeping Petras' upbeat, unabashed pop sound... [it] ventures into new territory for the songwriter." On the 21st of that same month, Petras released her online singles-bunble, Spotify Singles, exclusively through the service under BunHead Records, Petras' own label. It consisted of live renditions of "Hills" and The Killers' "Human", as performed at their NYC Studio.

On 1 October 2018, Petras released *Turn Off the Light, Vol. 1*, a Halloween-themed extended play. The project was seen as a departure from Petras' typical sound, and features a guest appearance from Elvira. The EP reached 21 on US Heatseekers Albums chart and US Independent Albums chart on Billboard.

Afterwards, Petras announced plans to release a single a month as a lead up to her debut album. She was featured on Cheat Codes' song "Feeling of Falling" in November 2018. On the same year Kim released two more singles, "Can't Do Better" and "All The Time".

In February 2019, Petras released three singles titled "1,2,3 dayz up" featuring SOPHIE, "If U Think About Me...", and "Homework" featuring Lil Aaron, thus finishing her *Era 1* project, as she announced on Twitter.

### **2019: *Clarity* and *Turn Off The Lights***

Petras released her debut album, *Clarity*, on June 28, 2019. Throughout May and June, Petras released one song a week as a lead-up to the album's release. In June, Petras embarked on the 24-stop Broken Tour across North America and Europe. Despite backlash from the general public, Petras continued to work with Dr. Luke, a producer who was accused of sexual assault by Kesha in 2014, on the album. The album was preceded by promotional singles including "All I Do Is Cry" and "Sweet Spot" and was accompanied by the lead single, "Icy", on its release date.

In August, Petras announced the release of Turn Off the Light, Vol. 2, that she later revealed was going to be released as an album on October 1st, 2019 – a year after the first installment. In addition to all tracks from the Vol. 1 EP, the album includes nine new songs.

### **2021 - 2022: *Slut Pop*, *Problématique,* "Unholy"**

In August 2021, Kim was signed to Republic Records, promptly releasing Future Starts Now, the first single off her upcoming official debut studio album Problématique. She later debuted Coconuts, and Hit It from the Back, the second and third singles at the 2021 MTV Europe Music Awards, becoming the first trans individual to preform at the award show. Coconuts became an viral success on tiktok, the release being pulled from early 2022 to December of 2021, and Hit It From The Back soon became available to pre-save on her website without a release date.

As this was in motion, Petras unsuspectingly announced a brand new EP, Slut Pop, being released in February of 2022, weeks after announcement. Slut Pop was described as an "X-rated" album about "slutty, sexual fantasies". and was reportedly made in a total of 2 weeks.

In early August 2022, almost all of the songs intended for Problématique leaked online, prior to Hit It From The Back's release. Petras soon tweeted that fans could "listen to the leaks if they wanted to", but that she was troubled because her label is stopping her from releasing the project due to said leaks. During a preshow interview, Kim confirmed that the album will not be released, however she also said to the fans that they can listen to it and give her their opinions on the unreleased songs. She further said: “Go listen to my scrapped album. Those songs are never coming out. I want you to listen and give me your opinions. I wrote them for you."

On September 22, 2022, Petras released the song "Unholy", a collaboration with Sam Smith. The track went viral on TikTok and hit number one in various countries upon release, including Australia, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand. It was also her first career entry on the U.S. *Billboard* Hot 100, eventually topping the chart in October 2022. This made Petras the first openly transgender woman in history to have a number-one song on the chart, and Smith the first openly non-binary person to do so.

On 5 February 2023, Petras and Smith won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for "Unholy". This made Petras the first openly transgender artist to win a major-category Grammy, and Smith the first non-binary artist to win a Grammy. During her acceptance speech, Petras thanked her mother, who she said "believed me, that I was a girl, and I wouldn't be here without her and her support". She also thanked musicians Madonna and Sophie.

### 2023-Present: *Feed The Beast and Problématique (reveal)*

Sparked by the massive commercial success of "Unholy", Petras released the singles "If Jesus Was a Rockstar" in November 2022 and "Brrr" in January 2023. On 17 February 2023, the singer stated that an album that she had been working on "for three years" was ready to be released the next summer, sharing her excitement for people to hear the songs. On April 21, 2023, the singer released "Alone" with rapper Nicki Minaj. The song proved more successful, having charted in five countries. It would also go on to be considered the albums lead single. She performed multiple songs from the album on May 19, 2023 for Sports Illustrated.

On May 15, 2023, Kim Petras announced her major-label debut album titled *"Feed The Beast"*, which would be released on June 23. On June 21, two days prior to the release of the album, she announced the album's supporting tour, Feed The Beast World Tour. It is scheduled to start in August 2023 and conclude in March of 2024. The tour will take place in North America and Europe and have 39 shows. On June 23, she celebrated the album's release on NBC’s TODAY, performing live as part of the Citi Concert Series. She later surprise released a revived version of her album *`Problématique`.*

## *Trivia*

* Some of Kim's dream collaborations are Daft Punk, Post Malone, Kylie Minogue, Cher and Rihanna.

## References

<references>

1. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20090221092159/http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm\_2181027.html
2. ↑ https://www.stern.de/tv/sterntv/613719.html
3. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20070617034317/http://www.stern.de/tv/sterntv/586670.html
4. ↑ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1540842/Unhappy-as-a-boy-Kim-became-youngest-ever-transsexual-at-12.html
5. ↑ https://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/sex-change-operations-mistakes-in-god-s-factory-a-462516.html
6. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20120220141556/http://www.unisex-friseure.de/Events/Shootings/Default.aspx
7. ↑ https://archive.fo/20120718182523/http://kimperium.blogspot.com/2008/11/nur-mal-nebenbei.html
8. ↑ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/4511986/Worlds-youngest-sex-change-operation.html
9. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecL0xG5-AdU&t=232s
10. ↑ https://blog.nastygal.com/culture/2017/12/want-kim-petras/
11. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BZC6K22qtg
12. ↑ https://www.billboard.com/music/kim-petras/chart-history
13. ↑ https://www.bakersfield.com/entertainment/music/going-viral-local-musicians-songs-land-on-spotify-charts/article\_ce4e0e54-876f-11e7-85d1-1328d1c8798b.html
14. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20180203064219/https://news.spotify.com/us/2017/10/20/spotify-introduces-rise/
15. ↑ https://www.papermag.com/paper-2018-predictions-kim-petras-2519934406.html
16. ↑ https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop/8099630/kim-petras-heart-to-break-listen
17. ↑ https://twitter.com/kimpetras/status/1093387438653751296