Princess Superstar: Hey Baby.

Princess Superstar plays The Zoo on Saturday and the Great Northern Hotel in Byron Bay on Sunday.

Princess Superstar doesn't get a lot of cards but she does get a bunch of dirty emails. It isn't surprising. Her signature single, Bad Babysitter, has her masturbating on the couch, planning to give head to a boyfriend who's stashed in the shower and trying to pick up 'daddy' as he drives her home. Her first major league album, Princess Superstar Is... is a soft porn sensation. And her promo photos include a delightful shot of the star clad in a tiny, revealing, white corset, a guitar strategically placed across her crutch.

On a good day you'd say 'tease', on a bad day 'tramp', and write off Princess Superstar as another foul-mouthed, over-sexed rapper - albeit a white female one. Except in this case you'd be wrong. Princess Superstar Is... is staggeringly good. Conchetta Kirschner takes her sexscapades and gives them an almost comic book edge. Her tongue may be wrapped around a vital organ or two but it's mostly firmly in her cheek.

If her lyrical adroitness doesn't drag you in then the music will. Princess Superstar Is... takes hip-hop and adds rock, punk, funk and all manner of beats and offers a truly eclectic rhythm smorgasbord that is never less than seductive and pulsating and always insouciant. Frankly, this may be the standout hip-hop album of the year, certainly there's no competition from the rest of the female rap and hip-hop fraternity.

"I listen to and am influenced by so many different types of music," she says, "It's like why would you want to be trapped in one genre. I love to experiment with music and find little things that shouldn't go together and make them go together. For instance, that sound on Napster was originally a Serge Gainsbourg sample, which I had replicated and changed a little bit. It's kind of like I'm rapping but it's over this French new wave or Stonesy kind of thing. It's kind of like a new genre.”

So how the hell did she end up here?

"That's a very good question," she laughs. "I have no idea. I have no idea how I ended up here. It's very strange. I must be an alien or something. I look back at other people in my life and see where they're at, from the people I went to school with in Pennsylvania to the people I started playing in punk rock bands with and it really is 'How the hell did this happen to me?' I guess it's just my love of music. It just took me away. And now it's four albums later, I'm doing my thing and I'm starting to get recognised for it."

And for her love of serving it up to her audience. Last November, she stripped to reveal two 'I love New York' stickers covering her breasts when she performed at Jarvis Cocker's Desperate club night in Pentonville Prison. An inspired tribute to "New York Titty's” troubles, as she put it.

That said, she also embraces feminism, defining her stance as "I'm a feminist with my tits out." Curiously, despite the outrageous posturing and sexploits, this Princess allows herself to be very vulnerable on this record.

“Yeah, that's sort of a new thing because I always used to hide behind the Princess Superstar shield," she says. "What I wanted to do was not become my own cliché. I think a lot of women in rap do become their own cliché - like Li'l Kim, Foxy Brown. It becomes a little bit boring. I wanted to show a personal side; a vulnerable side. It's important to do that for people in general because people are really looking at you, listening to you and you're affecting them. If you pull aside the curtain and go 'Yo, I'm human too', people really respond to that. It means a lot to them. Some of the greatest music ever - that I love - from the Beatles and Pink Floyd expresses that. Even some of the more old school rap used to be more honest and interesting and vulnerable and it's just completely changed now. What I liked about early hip-hop was it took on and embraced everything from no-wave, punk and funk to disco and dub. There was a freedom that exceeded any limitation - race, religion, gender, whatever. You could do, say, sound like, whatever you wanted. I don't think you can say that about hip-hop now. It's stuck in a rut of its own making to some degree."

The album does ask a question of her that isn't addressed in the songs. It is the record of a single woman exploring lust but not love. What happens when the Princess falls in love?

She laughs, "It'll be all over. I don't know if I am capable right now because I think I'm married to my music. Maybe I just haven't found the right guy.”

You can almost hear her considering the idea with interest.

"I've got to fall in love," she concludes. "I do!"