The single charts of the US magazine “Billboard”, called “Hot 100” for short, come up with a very special number one this week: The song “Unholy” by Sam Smith and Kim Petras, which is Steve Lacy’s funk slammer Displace “Bad Habit” from pole position.
The “number one” for “Unholy” is quite historic in the long history of US hit lists: Sam Smith is the first non-binary person and Kim Petras the first trans person to top the tableau.
“I’m sooo grateful,” Petras said happily via Instagram. With her successful duet project, she stands for another statistical highlight: Petras is the fifth German person (after Nena, Scorpions or Kraftwerk) to take first place in the US billboard charts. She was born in Cologne in August 1992 and grew up in the small town of Uckerath in the Rhineland region.
Her track marched to the top via TikTok, and the hit radio stations also swung in. “Unholy” is number one in other countries as well, including Australia, Canada and Smith’s native UK.
The Rhinelander flew to the West Coast for the first time at the age of 19 to realize her musical dream. As she revealed in an interview with the US celebrity magazine “People”, the early days in Los Angeles were not always easy.
Some labels and management had major reservations about their trans identity. But after more than two years of door-knocking and recording songs, she got a contract with Republic Records, a kind of “farm team” of the world’s largest major Universal Music.
Petras’ debut album was released in 2019 with millions of streams. “There have always been incredible and talented trans artists, and they’ve mostly been paid in dust,” Petras told People.
Her duet partner Sam Smith, from the small town of Bishop’s Stortford, England, announced in 2017 that he “identifies neither male nor female”. As of 2019, Smith has referred to himself as “non-binary.” A definition that has also been followed by the official British music prize “Mercury” since 2022. Gender-specific awards are no longer given there.
Republic Records is owned by critically acclaimed producer Lukasz “Dr. Luke” Gottwald, who is a writer and producer on almost every song Petras has released. The “extreme pop” that Kim Petras stands for will also be associated with all sorts of (business) excitement in the future.
In a conversation that Petras, in turn, walked with “People” on the red carpet of the “MTV EMAs 2021”; Speaking of her emotional outbursts, she said, “I’m very excited because I’ve been a completely independent artist all this time. And now I’m standing in front of my first official debut album, on which some have contributed. All the songs I did before were just a warm up, apparently.”