"The only antagonist around is me right now. It's really hard to consider that not liking yourself is a form of heartbreak. And that's what I've been dealing with," the indie-pop star told Insider.
At 4 p.m. on a Wednesday, any diner in New York City becomes a liminal space. It's anonymous, yet familiar: You may be surrounded by strangers who feel like "Seinfeld" extras. It's no longer lunchtime, but it's too early for dinner, so each menu item would be an equally strange and appropriate choice. No one blinks twice if you order eggs or a milkshake.
In this realm is where I met King Princess, who requested a bloody mary.
The 23-year-old star seems to thrive in this enigmatic air. She is nonbinary and identifies as a lesbian; she said her preferred pronouns are "literally whatever." Her songs suggest a restless mind, often flitting between homemade indie-rock and meticulous pop. In fact, she warned me that every moment of beauty, sorrow, or quiet sincerity on her new album will be followed by "an explosion."
King Princess' striking sophomore record "Hold On Baby," which comes out Friday, is not an attempt at self-discovery as much as it's a practice in self-marination.
Through the 12-song tracklist, she does not search for easy answers about herself or antidotes for her sadness. She gives herself permission to keep living without them.
"I'm in a long-term relationship," she explained between sips of her scarlet cocktail. "The only antagonist around is me right now. It's really hard to consider that not liking yourself is a form of heartbreak. And that's what I've been dealing with. You can be heartbroken for yourself, not liking yourself."
"This lying concept of self-love, it's not realistic. You have to love yourself in the moments that you feel the lowest as well," she continued. "And you can also learn a lot from sadness. It's not a weakness."
When I replied with an offhand comment about the aesthetic pressures of "girlboss culture," King Princess cut me off with the casual wisdom of an older sister: "Ew. Major ew."
"We have a lot of young people in this country, a lot of queer people, who are getting their shit infringed upon by the government, who have just gone through a pandemic, who are living in states that are actively going against their freedoms," she said, her passion mounting with each word.
"We need to be able to accept how sad this is and how sad the world is," she added. "We have to have art that gives us a glimpse of, 'It's going to be OK.'"
Just because King Princess is comfortable with ambiguity does not mean she'll refuse a label that fits, like lyricist, producer, or New Yorker.
She grew up as Mikaela Straus in Brooklyn, spending weekends with her father at his home studio in Williamsburg.
"I was walking around with my girlfriend this morning and I was saying, 'It's so trippy, some shit has went down in my life on every corner we're walking around,'" she told me. "Like, 'I cried on that corner.' 'Got busted for weed on that corner.'"
A record label offered King Princess a record deal at just 11 years old, but she turned it down because she didn't feel ready. Eight years later, after completing one year of college at USC Thornton School of Music, she became the first artist signed to Zelig, the indie label that Mark Ronson, a fellow New Yorker who's produced classics like "Uptown Funk" and Amy Winehouse's "Back to Black," owned.
That same year, her debut single "1950," a tender portrait of clandestine queer romance, became a surprise smash hit. Harry Styles cosigned it and it landed on Insider's list of the best LGBTQ love songs of all time.
Ronson is one of several heavy hitters that King Princess enlisted for "Hold On Baby" — a marked shift from her 2019 debut album "Cheap Queen," which she described as a "more insular" creative process.
This time around, the album credits include Ethan Gruska, best known for his work with Phoebe Bridgers, and Aaron Dessner, the primary producer credited on Taylor Swift's pair of recent masterpieces, "Folklore" and "Evermore."
King Princess, reeling from the recent death of her grandfather, was not eager to meet Dessner when their scheduled collaboration days came last year. But when she finally made her way to Long Pond Studio in New York's Hudson Valley, she said she felt magic.
"I was definitely feeling the spirit of Taylor Swift in that studio. Taylor Swift is obviously, undoubtedly, an incredible, incredible songstress," she said. "Because she's an example of someone where the melody never suffers from production."
Despite her urges as a producer and multi-instrumentalist, King Princess said she was inspired to craft a tracklist that she could completely strip of its layers and accessories — and have it still stand resolute.
"Being in that space and being in the woods and staying in that room and being in that gorgeous studio just brought me to this place where I was like, melody, melody, melody," she explained. "We have to focus on the body of this song. Like, its limbs and its anatomy, before we focus on the production. And I feel like Aaron really pulled that out of me."
"That was my goal with every song on this record, that you could play every song acoustically and it would be impactful like that," she added.
The first day King Princess met Dessner, they created "Change The Locks," a heart-shattering song inspired by a pandemic-induced rough patch in her relationship with her creative producer Quinn Wilson.
"I guess you're feeling like I steal your space / And you can't be peaceful when I'm in your face," she sings in the chorus. "So I guess it's over / 'Cause I hardly know you anymore."
Though it wasn't actually over and King Princess is still very much in love, she said it was painful for both parties to see those words on paper.
"That was a moment we had and I still find it to be very true to that moment. And I think she accepts that's my way of processing," the singer said of Wilson's reaction.
"I give her a lot of credit for that because not everybody is OK with having their shit aired out, but she's extremely brave and extremely honest," she continued. "She's really incredibly supportive of me expressing myself the way I do. So I'm very lucky for that."
I was definitely feeling the spirit of Taylor Swift in that studioKing Princess on working at Long Pond Studio in Hudson, NY
Indeed, the King Princess project only prospers when she's surrounded by people who support and understand her vision.
"The people I work with are incredibly cognizant of my captainship. I don't work with people that come in thinking that they're going to be at the helm of the ship," she said of her cowriters and coproducers. "I work with people who see me and see my strengths and want to contribute."
"I know what I want to say," she added. "But I need help saying it sometimes."
If King Princess is the captain and her collaborators comprise the crew, then we — the listeners — are ocean winds that keep the sailboat moving.
Unlike others who have been vocal about the demands of a mercurial music industry, King Princess is happy to meme-ify her own career or promote her music with a silly video.
"Artists are expected to be content creators now, and yes, that is an unfortunate and unpaid job that we have been doing," she said. "But I do think that as a whole, I'm not going to get up on TikTok and be like, 'I'm being made to do this.' It's actually a cool tool."
"Such is life," she continued with a shrug. "Like, what? We've created a new social media and it became the precedent for how people are discovered and promote their music? Duh. We live in a world where 90% of music is discovered on the internet."
For an artist who has spent the last two years writing, arranging, and perfecting an album, King Princess is surprisingly relaxed while discussing its reception.
She is excited for people to hear the full story, of course — from the PlayStation-fueled loneliness in "I Hate Myself, I Want to Party" to the cathartic blaze of "Let Us Die" — but she is also feeling "less and less precious about the release process."
"I feel like we're getting to this place in music where really all that matters is what the fans think. Like the fans decide, they decide what they want," she said, absentmindedly stirring her second bloody mary.
"I can put out as many singles as I want. It doesn't fucking matter. It's all about what people want, what people connect to," she concluded. "So I just want to get to a place where it's like, this is what I do. I put out music. I put out bodies of work. The rest is up to you guys."
Listen to King Princess and more on Spotify with Insider's rising-artist radio.