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Princess Superstar

Rapper, DJ, songwriter, and celebrity presence Princess Superstar cultivates an eclectic blend of sample-based hip-hop, electro, and electronic sounds, topped off by her one-of-a-kind swagger. After releasing her debut album, Strictly Platinum, in 1996, collaborations followed with artists including Moby, the Prodigy, and Grandmaster Flash. She landed in the U.K. Top 20 with "Bad Babysitter" in 2002 and again in 2007 with "Perfect (Exceeder)," a collaboration with Mason that made it all the way to the number three position. A year after releasing her sixth studio LP, 2013's The New Evolution, her reality show I Love Princess Superstar premiered on YouTube. In the 2020s, Princess Superstar experienced a resurgence of fame as new generations of fans (among them stars in their own right like Doja Cat) discovered her music. On top of releasing new singles, the extended use of "Perfect (Exceeder)" in the 2023 film Saltburn brought the song back into the charts more than 15 years after its release. Born Concetta Kirschner in New York City in 1971, Princess Superstar spent most of her childhood in Pennsylvania, but returned to New York to attend NYU when she was 17. It was there that she started playing the guitar and, after earning a B.F.A. in drama, decided to pursue music instead of acting. She joined the Gamma Rays, a band that released a pair of singles on the Teenbeat label in the mid-'90s. In the meantime, armed with a four-track and two tape decks, she made her first demo as Princess Superstar. Released in 1994, Mitch Better Get My Bunny -- a play on the title of a song by rapper AMG -- created some buzz, including making CMJ magazine's Futures section, and she signed with Fifth Beetle Records. With a backing band consisting of Kirsten "Pro" Jansen on drums, Doug Pressman on bass, and Art "F" Lavis on guitar, Princess Superstar released the album Strictly Platinum in 1996. The debut quickly gained momentum, shooting to the number one spot on some college radio stations in New York and Los Angeles, while receiving airplay throughout the U.S. and Canada. Strictly Platinum's "Theme Song" and "Flavis Special" were licensed for NBC's NBA Roundup and MTV's Slam and Jam. Kirschner took steps toward musical autonomy by the end of 1996, founding her own record label (the tongue-in-cheek A Big Rich Major Label) and vowing never to sign with a "real" major-label again. She also assembled a new live band: Ski Love Ski on bass, Mike Linn on drums, and DJ Science Center spinning records live. She recorded the second Princess Superstar album, 1997's CEO, with co-producers Curtis Curtis, Godfrey Diamond, and Greg Talenfeld. Following the album's release, Princess Superstar booked the Hostile Takeover Tour '98, a six-week tour through the U.S. and Canada, which included playing to a packed house at the South by Southwest Conference. In 1999, she toured and played festivals in Europe and began recording her third LP, which returned Curtis Curtis as her co-producer. Last of the Great 20th Century Composers was released in 2000 on her own label, renamed Corrupt Conglomerate. Kirschner's backing band by then included Linn and bassist Walter Sipser, with DJ Cutless Supreme manning turntables and playing guitar. Featuring appearances by musicians including Kool Keith, Beth Orton, and, on the single "Bad Babysitter," rap duo the High & Mighty, Princess Superstar Is arrived in late 2001 via Studio !K7 and Rapster. The next year, "Bad Babysitter" charted in Europe and Australia, reaching as high as number 11 in the U.K. An appearance on the radio version of Moby's "Jam for the Ladies" followed in 2003, and she was featured on the Prodigy's "Memphis Bells," which was paired with the group's single "Girls" on a limited-edition 12" in 2004. Princess Superstar's fifth studio album, My Machine, was a concept album set in the year 2080, made with such high-profile dance producers Jacques Lu Cont, Junior Sanchez, Armand Van Helden, and Arthur Baker. It arrived on Studio !K7 in 2005, the same year she released two mix albums in the Now Is the Winter of Our Discothèque series. She followed them with the mix album American Gigolo III in 2007. Also that year, a mashup of her 2005 single "Perfect" and Mason's 2006 instrumental "Exceeder" titled "Perfect (Exceeder)" reached number three in the U.K. and the Top 20 in several other European countries. After a featured spot on Grandmaster Flash's 2009 LP The Bridge: Concept of a Culture, she returned to Corrupt Conglomerate for the studio album The New Evolution, released in 2012. Still presenting a distinctive, ambitious mix of irreverent rap and dance music, the EP I'm a Firecracker, followed in mid-2014. Around that time, she also debuted the reality show I Love Princess Superstar on her YouTube channel. She backed comedian Margaret Cho in a musical performance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in 2015, and appeared on an episode of Comedy Central's Inside Amy Schumer in 2016. Using the pseudonym M.O.M., Kirschner returned in 2018 with the children's album These Are the Magic Days. Curtis Curtis engineered and co-produced. After the 2019 release of rarities compilation Look What I Found, she began sharing new songs like 2020's "Turnin' Trix" and 2021's "Gettin' Older (Pussy Still Pop!)," the latter released to celebrate her 50th birthday. By this point, a new generation of music listeners and makers alike had discovered Princess Superstar. Doja Cat referenced the song "Famous" in a social media post, and producer Hamdi sampled the song "Perfect" as the basis for his 2023 track "Counting." The song was also used in the 2023 film Saltburn, playing for more than a full minute during a party scene. This sparked a new interest in the track and brought it back into the U.K. charts. She continued performing live and releasing new music in the form of singles "Iceee Cream," "Tik Tok," and Steffan Goldmann collaboration "Who Am I Now?," all released in 2023.
© Stanton Swihart & Marcy Donelson /TiVo
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