Princess: Maya Rudolph’s Prince cover band
From the moment Maya Rudolph was born, she was destined to immerse herself in music. After all, her mother was Minnie Riperton. While Rudolph ended up becoming a comedian and actor, most notable for her appearances on Saturday Night Live, she has pursued musical side projects throughout her career.
If you’ve ever wanted to witness a female Prince tribute band, Rudolph has got you covered. When the actor isn’t starring on our screens or producing projects behind the scenes, you can find her performing Prince songs with her college friend Gretchen Lieberum under the band name Princess.
Rudolph’s love of Prince came when she heard Dirty Mind when she was just nine. She told NPR, ”I remember dancing in socks, on the rug and on the bed. It was just the jammiest, funkiest, most exciting, interesting… I’d just never really heard that before. I fell in love with Prince when I saw Purple Rain, the movie. That’s really what cracked it wide open.”
Later, she elucidated in an interview with The Cut, “I had the Parade poster on my wall with him, like, peeling his tank top off with his armpit hair, and my Jewish grandma was like, ‘He looks like a girl, honey.’ First, it was just the music [I loved], and then I wanted to bone him hard.”
The actor and comedian met Lieberum while they were both studying at the University of California, and they soon played together in a band called Supersauce. It didn’t take the pair long to come up with the idea of Princess, yet before Rudolph knew it, she had joined the cast of SNL, leaving no time for musical side projects.
However, Rudolph and Lieberum, who is a singer-songwriter in her own right, kickstarted Princess in 2011. Luckily for them, Prince approved of the duo, telling them that he had one of their performances from The Tonight Show saved on his DVR. Since they formed, the band have played countless shows, recently performing at Sofia Coppola’s Archive book launch party, decked out in full Chanel outfits.
When Princess play, they mix up the setlist to include B-sides and rarities alongside the music icon’s best-known hits. Talking to Billboard, the duo picked out some of their favourite Prince songs, with Lieberum stating: “To me, that whole album [1999] is the first album that sounds like Prince and no one else. That song [‘Something in the Water’] is maybe the most unique song on the entire album. It’s beautiful and funky and weird.”
Lieberum also called ‘When Doves Cry’ her “gateway drug” to Prince, adding, “I remember where I was when I heard it the first time. I was sitting in a car in a parking lot of the supermarket while my mom was grocery shopping. It came on the radio, and it just knocked my socks off.”
If videos from the band’s live performances are anything to go by, then Rudolph needn’t worry if she ever feels like quitting comedy and acting. Watch one of their electrifying performances below.
