Exclusive: Watch the animated video for Anna Akana's confessional new single, "Pink"

At this point, you might know Anna Akana from any number of places. Her popular YouTube channel, a recurring role on Comedy Central’s excellent Corporate, the voice of Daisy on Syfy’s Magical Girl Friendship Squad, former co-host of the podcast Explain Things To Me—the point is, Akana has done a lot. But it’s on her debut 2019 album Casualty that listeners got the most intensely personal work she’s put out yet, a record of stately pop that saw the artist and performer channel her life into a series of emotionally raw tracks. And now, she’s back with the new single from her forthcoming EP, No Longer Yours, along with a evocative animated video to accompany it, premiering exclusively on The A.V. Club.

If No Longer Yours is a record of recovery from a toxic relationship—Akana says it’s “about the moment you finally see the person who used to make you nauseous and realize it doesn’t sting so much anymore”—then “Pink,” the new single, is the element of moving into a brand-new phase. For Akana, that meant acknowledging a queer identity long kept under wraps: “‘Pink’ is the first song I wrote addressing my sexuality and the years I spent denying the validity of being bisexual until I fell in love with a friend,” she tells The A.V. Club. It’s a fitting musical accompaniment for that kind of realization: The simple piano chords that begin the track, aided by fluttering synth swells, provide an elemental framework for the singer’s story of self-discovery, open-hearted and soaring as a Broadway ballad—until the rhythmic snaps and pops rise up and offer a smoky, Lorde-like beat to the proceedings.

Akana’s No Longer Yours EP comes out February 19, 2021.