Princess Superstar & F**king on Electroclash Dance Floors
Author: Jonty Adderley
Tuesday, May 6, 2003
"Until I was fourteen years old I was a really excellent student, I went to a real preppy hoitey-toitey school that I really hated," she told Skrufff's Jonty Adderley.
"People often imagine me as being a cheerleader and a really popular girl at school but I wasn't at all, I was a dork. But people thought I was a weird dork."
In fact, sitting in a conference room of her London PR office, she's a million miles away from offering a cheerleader vibe, instead coming across as a friendly, seriously driven alternative individual. Friendly and focused, she's embraced her 'weirdness' and turned it into something special, both through her music and her new Manhattan electroclash club DJs Are Not Rock Stars, at Centrofly. In London to promote her new single Do It Like A Robot, she was also due to play at Nag, Nag, Nag the next night, following up from her friend DJ Hell, who also coincidentally remixed the new single, to impressive effect.
Skrufff (Jonty Adderley): Do It Like A Robot first came out in 1999, why are you re-releasing it now-
Princess Superstar: "I made the track in 1989 which was even before electro happened, in a way. I was more involved with the hip hop scene back then but I was still using that kind of electro beat because I loved it. My label decided to re-release it now because they viewed it as a predecessor to all the music out now so that's why. We just thought it would sound current today."
Skrufff: You've got loads of electroclash connections while your music is still quite hip hop styled, where do you sit between the two genres-
Princess Superstar: "My music is still more hip hop-py but the real turning point for me was when I DJed at the Gigolo party at last year's Love Parade (in Berlin). At the time, I was playing a lot of old skool hip hop and here and there little bits of electro but I just understood from that experience that playing electro was so much more fun than playing hip hop. Really! Lots of times when you play hip hop, people are just nodding their heads but the electro people were dressing up and going nuts, and they had much more of a punk vibe. I started out in music playing guitar in a more punk orientated thing so the electro thing really spoke to me. From that moment, I started DJing more electro and house, Hell basically influenced me a lot."
Skrufff: DJ Hell's done the remix, was he your choice-
Princess Superstar: "Yeah, I asked him and he did it. The other thing that got me into the scene was my DJ Alex (Alexander Technique), who's a great hip hop DJ, who also happens to be best friends with Junior Sanchez, so he also introduced me to it as well. I wasn't a house-head at all previously but now I'm starting to love that whole vibe."
Skrufff: One of your collaborators Kool Keith recently was quoted as saying he wouldn't visit Europe again because he thinks Europeans are too arrogant….
Princess Superstar: "Too arrogant!- I find it the opposite."
Skrufff: Europeans seem to understand you more than Americans so far, would you agree-
Princess Superstar: "Yeah, I would agree with that, I have a nice cult following in America, though it's very underground. The rules in America are too tough, for example, concerning radio, I'm probably too strange to break through. I don't neatly fit into any genre. For Keith to say that is very strange, I don't think he knows what he's talking about (chuckling). He's funny, he always goes off on tangents. We shot a video together and I adore him, he's a genius but I'm not quite sure what he meant by that comment. I adore it over here in Europe too."
Skrufff: What's the approach< Tags