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Princess Superstar By: Adam Grant Princess Superstar Music Video - Bad Babysitter For years now, hip-hop has been perceived as the stomping ground for men with impeccable rhyming skills and in certain cases, a preference for objectifying women both lyrically in song, and visually within music videos. 
There are those women however, that have kicked that situation in the crotch to branch out into their own sexually charged hip-hop vantage points and challenge the norm – Princess Superstar is one of those women. In 1994 at the age of 17, this platinum blonde bombshell made her way from her home in Philadelphia to the musical hotspot of New York, where she’d jumpstart her career with a provocative brand of hip-hop and electronic dance music. Early on, a lot of what got people talking about Princess Superstar was her unapologetic, in-your-face material that could just as easily offend, as turn on. With tracks to her credit like “Come Up to My Room,” “NYC Cunt,” “Fuck Me on the Dancefloor,” and perhaps her greatest hit, “Bad Babysitter,” nothing seemed taboo at the time. “When I started, it was still really risqué, but now every other female lyric is about sex and fucking,” says Superstar when discussing the chances she took back in the day. “I’m kind of over it now; I touched on that 10 years ago. It’s still fun to throw that stuff in because men have been doing that forever, from Elvis, to Robert Plant, to Biggie Smalls; they all talked about sex – and it’s such a big deal when a girl does it you know? But it’s not. I think (the attitude) is changing in this day in age. 
“I don’t censor myself, but it’s getting a bit old now and I’m really interested in doing some other stuff.” Today – as Princess Superstar alluded to – getting away from such material is at the forefront of her mind. Currently working on her 6th album, Superstar is inspired these days by the European music scenes in which she is able engulf herself in while on the road, as well as the DJ culture that she is continually becoming more of a household name within. What truly impresses Superstar though is her longevity. As a woman in an industry that now signs, promotes, and cuts acts seemingly at will, the fact that this girl from the city of brotherly love has managed to survive stereotypes and sharp turns in her musical path for more than a decade, is an accomplishment in itself. “It is crazy that I have been doing this now for 12 years and also all of the different twists and turns that (my career) has taken, because when I started out I was really in the indie rock scene,” recalls Superstar. “Then I went to the hip-hop scene, now I’m in the electronic dance scene, so I really feel grateful that my love of music spans all of that stuff and I’m grateful that I’ve been able to be successful so that I can do all of it. “For me, I just keep doing what I’m doing and I tell other girls, ‘come on, you can rap, you can be a DJ, you can do whatever.’” For more information on Princess Superstar, and to check out a handful of her tracks, please visit http://www.myspace.com/k7princess |
