To mark the launch of her new album, the musician Mikaela Straus, aka King Princess, hauled a 200-pound steel coffin onto a stage in Brooklyn. And she lay there, eyes shut in an open casket, as her fans paid their respects. It was a symbol of her rebirth, and a vigil for her old era: in 2023, Straus took a break from making music and left Mark Ronson’s Columbia imprint, Zelig Records, for the independent label Section1. She also left Los Angeles and moved back home to New York, and she saw the end of a four-year relationship.
“This is the beginning of me putting out music and loving it again,” the 26-year-old tells me, adding that the commercialisation of her craft began to feel “stinky”. “I grew up writing music as a form of therapy,” she says. “And then it’s monetised. You get signed and then you’re not putting [music] out for yourself anymore.” Overwhelmed by numbers and statistics, she began to feel numb. “Now I feel like I’ve let go – it’s a really good exercise in detachment,” she says brightly.
