I don’t listen to much general pop- let alone dance pop- but Kim Petras is cuter than a basket of kittens, her voice is lovely and she amazingly launched her own career at the age of 15 by uploading to the internet videos she made of herself singing. The videos caught the attention of a producer in her native Germany and the two teamed up to release her first commercial single last fall. Her debut commercial album is forthcoming.

Petras has made the news some in the States because she was born a boy and began her M2F reassignment process at the age of 12. Petras was very open about her process. At age 13, she appeared on a national television show in Germany to discuss her hormone treatments. A year later, Petras appeared in a documentary and on another talk show to argue for her right to have gender reassignment surgery at the age of 16 (two years before Germany’s set legal age for such procedures). Petras was eventually granted permission to have the surgery at 16.

This video is one of her homemade ones so it is a bit endearingly amateur. Showing my age here, but it reminds me of early Debbie Gibson:

(Post edited for clarity because I was mangling sentences left and right. Ah, pre-6 am.)