Sexy Boy

Kinga, born Tomas C. Fussey, is originally from Nelson, British Columbia, and spent part of his youth in Calgary, where the city's nightlife gave him his first taste of the club world. He began wearing makeup at sixteen. He found his stage name in Calgary too: on a visit to a vintage boutique in the Kensington area, the girl behind the counter was called Kinga, and he took her name for himself. At seventeen he hitchhiked east to Toronto. By his early twenties he had become one of the more recognizable figures in the city's downtown club scene. Long hair, makeup and heels were part of his image years before he had a record to promote.

He was seventeen when he started at the Diamond Club, one of Toronto's best-known alternative venues, and he worked there from the day it opened in 1984 until the day the doors were locked around 1993, first in coat check and later around the box office, taking in the music and personalities that passed through. Newspaper profiles at the time treated his appearance almost as much as his music. He began making music in 1987, at around twenty, and went to the Royal Conservatory of Music to learn to sing. He made demos, worked in studios, rehearsed with professional musicians and producers, and wrote steadily.

In 1988 he released his first record on his own King Rhythm label (RRT-001): 'Elevator Operator' backed with 'Sexy Boy'. Kinga wrote the lyrics and shared the writing credit with keyboardist Dan Madison, and veteran producer Bob Gallo produced the session at Phase One Studios in Toronto. The label lists 'Elevator Operator' as side A and 'Sexy Boy' as side AA, but Kinga always called 'Sexy Boy' the B-side, sure it was the lesser of the two. It quickly became the song that defined the record. CFNY, Toronto's influential alternative station, put it on the air, and Kinga has credited CFNY's David Marsden, who died September 25th, 2026, as the reason anyone came to know his music. The song's flirtatious lyric and synth-driven arrangement fit the image audiences already associated with him.

The record moved him from the Diamond's coat check to its stage. CBC television filmed his first live performance there and profiled him for After Hours. When the Toronto Sun caught up with him in December 1988, he was preparing for a Diamond show and CFNY was already playing 'Sexy Boy'. He also played Boots and Buds during Midsummer's Madness IV, a benefit for Casey House and the PWA Foundation. By the end of the year the single had earned him a CFNY CASBY nomination for Best Independent Artist of 1989.

By April 1989 Toronto newspapers were reporting that Kinga had signed with Amok Records and that 'Sexy Boy' was being rebuilt as a 12-inch dance release. On the resulting Amok EP530, almost every part was re-recorded or remade, Kinga's vocal included, and the new production pushed the song toward a darker, slicker club sound. The record carried the 6:35 'Late Night Dance Mix', a dub and a 7-inch remix/edit. The remix production is credited to "K. Bros", Marco Luciani programmed the track and Hugh Cooper engineered at Metalworks Studios. The Record reviewed the 12-inch on July 17, 1989, calling the K. Bros Late Night Dance Mix "Nervy, NRGetic, Euro-slanted sass," and noted that the song had first appeared in seven-inch form the previous year. Kinga himself was taken aback by the moody, polished result, and sales were disappointing. As he later put it, "It was not the sound of the moment."

Street Sound's 1989 year-end issue named 'Sexy Boy' Best Late Night Sleaze and listed Kinga among its Most Promising New Artists. The 1990 Toronto Music Awards nominated him for Best Toronto Pop/Dance Group or Artist, in a field with Sheree, John James, Candi, Karen Silver, Kon Kan and Donna Robbins. He kept playing the Copa and the Diamond, where CFNY presented him as the Saturday headliner on July 28, 1990, and he opened for Deee-Lite.

By then Kinga was doing far more than singing. Of the first single he told the Toronto Sun, "I just wrote the lyrics." By the next sessions he was engineering demos, co-writing and co-producing, the start of a large body of music that never received a period release. He moved to New York City in 1993 but kept flying back to Toronto to record with his writing partners before returning to New York. A few of those songs were mixed in New York, but he never entered the city's music scene, and by 1995 he was finished with making music.

In New York his sideline in makeup became a profession, and he travelled internationally as a makeup artist with Roberta Flack and Neil Sedaka. In 2008 Flack encouraged him to start making music again, and the suggestion stuck with him. Around the same time he discovered that 'Sexy Boy' had been posted to YouTube. He still resisted going back. He spent about twenty-five years in New York before returning to Canada.

Back home, Seance Records approached him about reissuing 'Sexy Boy'. Then COVID struck and Seance was slow to move. By then the urge to make music had taken hold again, because Kinga had reunited with Chelsea Buns and Charlie Silverheart, the two writing partners he had worked with after the Dan Madison and Bob Gallo sessions. He reworked the song and got his voice back to where it had been in 1988. On October 28, 2022, King Rhythm issued 'Sexy Boy (Champain Mix)', his first appearance on streaming platforms and the first music he had made since 1995. 'Something's Gotta Give', written with his two long-time partners, followed on March 10, 2023. He names George Michael and Prince as the artists who shaped his sense of rhythm and the way he phrases a lyric, and his aim is still straightforward pop: memorable songs made to entertain.

Dark Entries, the San Francisco archival label, tracked him down and signed him. On June 20, 2025, it reissued 'Sexy Boy' (DE-316) for Pride Month. The 12-inch collects the original 7-inch mix, three versions from the Amok record and a previously unreleased 'TV Mix', newly remastered and packaged in a reproduction of the original sleeve with liner notes, lyrics and an 8x10 press photo. Its credits add Tobi Lark on backing vocals and Louis Socci on guitar, and its notes place Calgary's nightlife at the start of Kinga's story. Remix packages from QUBIQ and Ruff Loaderz followed later in 2025. The promoted 'Sexy Boy' package reached No. 4 on Music Week's Commercial Pop Club Chart in the UK and also appeared on its Upfront Club Chart, the first of numerous Music Week chart placings for Kinga.

By then Kinga was well into a second creative period, with King Rhythm still his label. 'Cash Only', a tongue-in-cheek darkwave track with Toronto industrial artist Symptom-9, came out in October 2025. In 2026 he began working with Swedish producer and DJ StoneBridge. 'Just Play the Music', released April 10 and their first co-write, reached No. 8 on Music Week's Commercial Pop Club Chart, cracked its Upfront Club Chart and climbed into the top ten of the BILLCS Top 30. 'Giorgio' followed on June 5 and reached No. 17 on the Commercial Pop chart, promoted with mixes by StoneBridge and Charlie Silverheart. StoneBridge's extended mix of 'Pump' arrived in August.

Alongside the solo work, Kinga became the lead singer of HarlowBardot, formed with Marc Wonnacott, a founding member of The Biffs and Land of Giants. The name joins the surnames of Jean Harlow and Brigitte Bardot. The two had moved through overlapping Toronto scenes for decades without properly meeting until social media brought them together. Wonnacott sent Kinga an instrumental, Kinga added lyrics and melody at home, and with Rob Stuart as co-writer it became 'Nothing (Stays The Same)', the duo's first single in early 2025. 'You Sleep', 'Static In My Head' and 'Wednesday Night' followed that year. StoneBridge's remix of 'Static In My Head' reached No. 10 on Music Week's Commercial Pop Club Chart, and 'Wednesday Night' reached No. 8. In 2026 came 'Midnight In Japan', with Kinga on vocals, Wonnacott and Stuart on keyboards and programming, and Stuart co-producing with the duo, and then 'Apologies (Fashionably Late)'. The duo's roots are in the synth-pop and electronic music both men absorbed in the 1980s, and the project keeps producing new songs.

-Robert Williston