Following a brilliant Coachella performance where King Princess, aka Mikaela Straus, performed the song second on her setlist, she announced the official release of “Cheap Queen” via an Instagram post on Tuesday, complete with some pretty fantastic drag queen makeup.
https://www.instagram.com/p/ByBP_mopUM_/
The new single from Straus is one of the first bits of new music fans have gotten in 2019 aside from her duet of Fiona Apple’s “I Know” which she recorded as a Spotify exclusive early this year along with Apple herself. Aside from performing it at Coachella, plenty other snippets of live performances of the track have surfaced in the past, so fans already have a pretty good idea of what it sounds like.
Still, the lyrics are a pretty iconic summary of a complex, complicated identity, along with a playful riff on the “queen.”
“I can be good sometimes / I’m a cheap queen / I can be a what you like / And I can be bad sometimes,” she sings. “I’m a real queen / I can make grown men cry.” That last bit is another too good choice lyric, that fans will surely relish singing back — and truly, already are based on the queens around me in the crowd at Coachella.
Check out the song below, and stay tuned for a lot more from King Princess this year, hopefully her first full-length album will be dropping soon enough.
