@AuLeaf beat me to it… apparently STAPE is a tiny town in Yorkshire but I couldn't find any other way to clue it (except maybe wordplay from STAPES that others will see better than me). STAPE doesn't seem to have ever appeared in the NYT puzzle.
And, apparently Ke$ha dropped the $ and is now just Kesha. (I think that's more than I wanted to think about that for the year…)