“cute kawaii,” the latest single from LA-based hyper-electro pop artist fussy, arrives to suck you into a sickeningly sweet, fuzzy world of her own making. The track is a debut single from fussy, who’s previously worked with R&B and electronic artists like PEEKABOO and Babyface. She jumps head first into the deep end of candy-coated, with this ironic, red-hot song.

“cute kawaii” keeps the hyperpop wheel turning, pumping air back into a genre that’s run a few flat tires in recent years. She takes a sonic departure from her feature on DJ-producer Juelz’s 2022 single, “Eden,” straying further from the bassier wubble-wubbles and leaning into clunkier, mechanical sounds. Whereas on “Eden,” fussy’s vocals are light and airy, on “cute kawaii” she leans into a robotic, hyper-pitched sound.

She parodies the “kawaii” image that men–often white–so often use to hyper sexualize Asian women and Asian culture at large. Fussy, who is Filipino, uses a cripplingly cute femme-bot imagery as a means of reclaiming the caricature, “cute kawaii with the highlights/make you wanna die/Don’t be shy I make all the boys wanna cry.” Her chirps of “Gaslight/gaslight” only further the snappy, sharp energy of the track.

“cute kawaii” is the first single in what’s rumored to be a promising, buzzy summer for fussy. You can find her on Instagram.