Breaking KING PRINCESS Queer pop star-in-waiting beloved of and . Prepare to be “gooped”. ast March, Harry Styles back up when people suggested what might 20-year-old lesbian. I can. He chaperones tweeted a lyric from King help her own songs. “It took a run-in with that experience.” Straus is now busy finishing Princess’s debut single 1950. sexism in the workplace to light a fire under her debut LP, a record on which she explores L A spacious piano ballad about my ass,” she recalls. At school, she didn’t fit in drag culture, gender queerness and unrequited love for a girl, it and sectioned off her emotions. “I was gay,” friendship. “I’ve been pounding this bitch!” elevated then relatively unknown Mikaela she laughs, “I didn’t wanna be feminine or she reports. “My EP was all about having my Straus to a point where the track now has conform.” Instead she found solace in heart broken. The album will be a dedication over 200 million streams. “I didn’t realise creativity. “In music I expel sadness.” to the people in my life, making art with how fast that popped. I wasn’t good at After relocating from friends, being stupid,” she pauses, excited Twitter,” she recalls, stoned and still in bed at to LA, Straus wrote her debut EP about getting it out into the world, home in LA, “but I’m freaked out all the time. Make My Bed while still at college. For Fans Of: “I wanna leak it… no, I can’t leak it. I’m 100 per cent gooped.” Straus is 20, and Fuelled by romantic devastation, Lorde, They’d be so mad.” “gooped” means she’s surprised. Talia’s mix of soulful heartbreak Billie Eilish, The last year has also seen Having spent a life in music, perhaps and crunching beats was written Maggie Rogers Straus start a relationship with Straus shouldn’t be gooped. Her dad is a while sobbing over a piano. Her Get This Track: actress Amandla Stenberg, studio engineer. At home she learned piano, classmates weren’t impressed, Pussy Is God experience her first proper tour bass, drums, guitar and sang backing vocals though. “The kids didn’t like it!” and appear in The Gap’s latest on sessions he worked on. Artists coming she says. Thankfully, the music industry ad campaign. She admits to suffering panic through the studio included Missy Elliott and has been more receptive to her sound and attacks in the most intense moments but The National. She wasn’t interested in identity. “I told everyone I’m gay. It’s a her latest US tour helped her focus amid releasing her own music, however, until she platform I use wisely.” She dropped out of speculation that she and Stenberg had split. found herself uncomfortable during writing college after signing to Zelig, the label owned The tour was named after the single the couple sessions while in high school, getting her by producer Mark Ronson. Ronson heard co-wrote, Pussy Is God, an elastic, electro-pop Straus’s songs and, impressed by her lyrics, anthem about sex. “I’m a 20-year-old lesbian invited her out for dinner. “I rolled the fuck up. rock star,” she says. “I say pussy in a positive I knew I was gonna sign with this fucker.” way. I want good queer messaging for the kids. A second date at his studio sealed it. And who doesn’t like pussy?” King Princess “Mark knows what he’s not. He can’t be a is set to reign supreme. EVE BARLOW

“I say pussy in a positive way. I want good queer messaging for Future pop royalty: the kids.” King Princess, aka Mikaela Straus.

18 MAY 2019