Stella Prince will play Cafe Wha? with special guests May 17 (photo by Lynn Goldsmith)
Who: Stella Prince ft Maidin and Susie McCollum
What: Live concert
Where: Cafe Wha?, 115 MacDougal St.
When: Friday, May 17, $17.99 – $29.15 (plus two-item minimum), 6:30
Why: Self-described “Gen Z Folk” artist Stella Prince knew she wanted to become a singer when she was three, started performing when she was five, and wrote her first song when she was ten. Now nineteen, Prince, who was born and raised in Woodstock and lives in Nashville, has been performing around the country and the UK, including becoming the youngest performer ever to play Nashville’s Tin Pan South music festival.
On such tunes as “Crying on a Saturday Night,” “Closing Doors,” and “Two Faced,” she reveals a maturity well beyond her years. On “Dear Future Me,” she asks, “Why do I keep begging for love / Is it because it’s never enough / Why do I always punish myself / If things don’t go the way I planned them to be / You never truly recover / When you always compare yourself to another / Childhood insecurities hover / Making it hard to relate to each other / When will I fill this empty void that’s buried deep inside of me? / Maybe not until I get over past insecurities / Standing tall like trees / Reaching new heights of maturity / I wish my younger self could see / dear future me.”
On May 17, Prince, who recently announced that her all-female folk showcase, Change the Conversation’s “Stella Prince and Friends,” will visit Connecticut, Maine, and California this summer, brings her talents to the legendary Cafe Wha? in Greenwich Village, joined by Maidin and Susie McCollum. Tickets are $17.99 for general admission and $29.15 for premier seating, plus a two-item minimum.
[Mark Rifkin is a Brooklyn-born, Manhattan-based writer and editor; you can follow him on Substack here.]