King Princess this past April at the Showbox. Photo courtesy of Seattle Music News
Author: Amelia Zeve
What else can be said about singer, songwriter, and ~queen~ of tongue in cheek comedy Mikaela Straus, better known by her stage alias King Princess, that hasn’t been said already?
The 21-year-old, who graced Seattle stages last week at the Showbox Sodo, has had a very rapid rise to fame within the past few years. Her name was catapulted into the limelight when Harry Styles, the boyband star of old, famed for his fantastic hair and vocals (who now, all these years later, still remains famous for his somehow even more fantastic hair and vocals), tweeted out a lyric of one of KP’s more explicitly queer songs, 1950, a sappy ballad about being in love even when the law, society, or both tells you you shouldn’t be. Styles may have been famous for his hair and voice of an angel (seriously, if he’s not at least on your radar in SOME form at this point…. Lord rest your sweet, sweet sheltered soul), but another massive part of his fanbase was completely dedicated to figure out if he was queer.
I love it when we play 1950.
— Harry Styles. (@Harry_Styles) March 7, 2018
So to them, his random, out of context tweet from a (at that point) very small and (still to this day) very queer artist was one of the first signs of nodding to an identity that was anything less than straight. So, Straus and and her small cult following that had been built around her limited singles release and debut EP “Make My Bed,” were suddenly cast into the bright, rainbow limelight. And that is exactly where she remains today.
This was my second time seeing KP, and my first time seeing her since her heater of a debut album, Cheap Queen, was released. She has a soaring vocal range, and a stage ambiance that toys between the line of really shitty drag (hence the ‘Cheap Queen’ theme) and a really, really epic Bat Mitzvah. The show opened with Kilo Kish, another vocalist and rapper who was killing it over beats that sounded like samples from various Tik Toks or the TRON theme song, and then Miss Texas 1988, a truly fabulous drag queen who toured with Straus the last time she performed in Seattle. Miss Texas’ performance had a vastly-reaching plot, full of twists and turns and a final culmination in the removal of her wig (cue gasps) and the declaration that she, too, was a cheap queen. At the end of the day- who isn’t? Either way, these two performances did a fabulous job of hyping up the sold-out Showbox Sodo, preparing us for the arrival of Miss King herself.
And what can you truly do to prepare? King Princess reads like a rock star, in everything from the way she moves up onstage to the way she affects the crowd (let me just tell you from the swoons of every person in that audience: GREATLY. SHE AFFECTED US GREATLY) to even the way she smashed her guitar onstage at the end of the show- something I thought only happened in movies or the mid-1980s. King Princess is such a powerful, fun, performer- she’ll be up onstage, rock-hard abs glinting in the spotlight (Side note- we NEED TO TALK ABOUT THOSE ABS. Jesus. She’s like a slim, Jewish version of Dwane The Rock Johnson, but in a woman’s body), jeering at the crowd with a big smile, and then suddenly- a chord would play and she would shift into something totally different. It was so fun watching her deliver danceable hits like Hit the Back and Pussy is God, but the most stupendous and moving parts of the show were when she truly opened her heart and let her soul pool out on the stage. Which happened, and it happened often. Songs like You Destroyed my Heart and Do You Want To See Me Cry were powerful and moving, but to me, there was nothing like her performance of Homegirl.
Watching her sing Homegirl in a state of raw, unadulterated heartbreak was something beautiful and tragic, all at once. The crowd was moving and dancing and yelling for pretty much every moment of the show, save for that one- somehow, the entire room seemed to fall silent when she sung it. With the stage lights striking her like a halo and her notes ringing out around the near-silent room, it felt like it was just you and her and all the heartbreak in the world- just some great shared reservoir of love and hate and joy and tragedy. Except you knew, by the energy around you and the adoration lifting up to the stage, that you weren’t alone. Somehow, all of Straus’ love and sadness, and all the emotions of everyone in the room, seemed to fuse. It was one of those bright, clear moments where I realized how special it was to be standing in a room with just over 1100 people, all able to all be free and be exactly who we were. Progress doesn’t always happen, and it definitely doesn’t always happen fast- but, standing there watching KP mourn into the mic and watching a room full of strangers, mostly queer girls, mourn with her and swoon for her and cry for the beauty of it all, was one of those stilling moments where it all hit. There was a moment, taking that in, where I realized how special it is to be able to have a queer rock star who can ~be~ a queer rock star. It hasn’t always been that way. So, as we move into a world where it becomes more and more common-I’m glad one of them is King Princess.
Amelia Zeve | Larry was real | KXSU Arts Reporter