KING PRINCESS Shares Video for “Jaime”
King Princess – the project of Brooklyn-based vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, producer and actor Mikaela Straus – released her triumphant third record Girl Violence earlier this month. She’s about to embark on a North American tour starting at Austin City Limits this weekend, but beforehand she shares a music video for “Jaime.” Co-starring Straus and Gio of Giovanni’s Kitchen, the music video was directed by Celine Sutter and finds King Princess revisiting her Cheap Queen era of femininity, just to burn it down with “Jaime.” Sutter says: “For her album Girl Violence, King Princess has spent the rollout tormented by demonically seductive, maniacal women. In the ‘Jaime’ music video, she finally embodies that feminine figure; this time directing the violence inward, upon herself – or perhaps upon a Bushwick line cook lookalike. Reviving the genderqueer essence of Cheap Queen, this new KP screams, seduces, and hotboxes her boyfriend’s car. At its core, this song plays with the allure of self-destruction: chasing approval that will never come, with King Princess steping into the role of the villain – and she has never looked better doing it.”
King Princess says of the video, “People on the internet kept saying that Gio looked like me so I decided to cast him in a video so I could torment myself. I can’t stop and I can’t walk away, I love it and I hate it. Sometimes when it comes to girl violence, I am the woman torturing me.”
Girl Violence, out now on section1, was announced earlier this Summer with a performance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and King Princess recently sat down with The New Yorker to discuss the new record. Made in collaboration with Jake Portrait (Lil Yachty, Alex G, Unknown Mortal Orchestra), and Aire Atlantica (breakthrough: SZA’s “Low”), Girl Violence is the sound of Straus picking up the pieces after her world fell apart – fighting for freedom, stepping back from the limelight and major label system, breaking up, moving away, and returning to Brooklyn where she was born and raised. Through it all, she somehow found the agency and creative spirit to fight the misconceptions and create the album she was destined to make, in a potent return to self. Perennially underestimated, she now wields the chip on her shoulder as a weapon, upping the ante and taking the reins on Girl Violence.
King Princess will take Girl Violence on the road for a proper tour, starting this weekend. Kicking off at Austin City Limits, she will tour throughout North America including shows in her hometown of NYC at Brooklyn Paramount and capping off the US run with The Wiltern in Los Angeles. She’ll then tour throughout the UK and Europe in December. Full dates listed below and tickets are on sale HERE.
The release of Girl Violence comes in the midst of Mikaela Straus’ television debut, as she stars in the new season of Nine Perfect Strangers on Hulu, alongside Nicole Kidman. Later this year, she will make her feature film debut in Song Sung Blue, an upcoming movie starring Hugh Jackman & Kate Hudson. There is truly no one like her – with over one billion streams across platforms, a string of global certifications, collaborations with the likes of Fiona Apple, Florence Welch, Aaron Dessner, Mark Ronson, and Father John Misty, performances on Saturday Night Live, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and NPR Tiny Desk, tours with The Strokes, Florence + The Machine, and Kacey Musgraves, fashion campaigns for Gucci and Calvin Klein, and a constant champion of LGBTQ+ visibility…King Princess is a singular artist that is ready for her big return. Check out more music news here.
Photo Credit: Conor Cunningham