rapper
Badmómzjay with second record – What is your “Survival Mode”?
Rapper Badmómzjay presented her new album in Berlin. photo
© Sebastian Christoph Gollnow/dpa
Her colleagues often forget that she is only 21 years old. The rapper Badmómzjay has already achieved many successes: founding a company, numerous awards and now her second album. It’s all about survival.
“The second album is the foundation of my throne,” raps Badmómzjay confidently on the intro to her new record “Survival Fashion”. In the music industry it is often said that the second album is the most important and crucial for the rest of your career. Badmómzjay had that in mind, as she tells the German Press Agency (dpa). “I put pressure on myself with the album made it because I knew the second one would determine whether people would listen to the third one.”
But the growing pressure during the creation of the album is not what demands the 21-year-old the most during this time. The musician’s life has been very busy for two years: she founded her own beauty company, won many awards and can be seen in numerous shows as well as on the cover of German Vogue. Meanwhile, she is touring with her first album and is already producing her second.
What becomes very much “survival mode” for her on the album is losing her home, as she says. “You just have your suitcase, your people, the tour bus, a plane, a train, but you have nowhere to go.” If she is away from her four walls for a long time, she quickly feels like a stranger there. “You keep coming back to your home with your suitcase, as if you don’t even live there,” says Badmómzjay.
Being in survival mode – that doesn’t seem to be anything new for the 21-year-old. Because on the intro she continues to rap: “Nobody can see that I’ve been in survival mode for ten years.”
From difficult circumstances
The rapper, born Jordan Napieray, grew up in Brandenburg an der Havel with her sister and single mother. “I grew up with hardly any things, in difficult circumstances, with not much money,” she says.
Badmómzjay seems approachable and down-to-earth. “I’ve simply never forgotten where I come from and I’m very proud of it.” Nevertheless, she knows what she can do and can say quite immodestly: “I know that I’m crass, but if someone else is crass, then I know that too.”
Different feature guests can be heard on “Survival Mode”. From rap legend Kool Savas (“Airplanes”) to the successful newcomer Domiziana (“Auf die Party”) to established artists in the scene such as Juju (“Mh Mh”) as well astakt32 and Vito (“4 Life” ). When the rapper presented “Survival Mode” live for the first time in Berlin on Thursday in front of around 250 young people, some of the feature guests were also there. For around two hours, Badmómzjay presented herself as the voice of her generation and repeatedly made statements against prejudice, sexism and clichés.
The plate is as diverse as the guests. The 21-year-old uses hard rap, sings in a beautiful pop voice and even goes wild on techno beats. “There were just a lot of ups and downs and you went through a lot of emotional situations, so you couldn’t get around the fact that some songs sounded different to rap.”
Old souls
When working together, the 21-year-old is often said to appear much more mature than usual for her age. But isn’t it annoying and tiring when you can’t behave appropriately for your age – sometimes immature and naive? “It just upsets me when people forget how old I really am. It’s cool that you think I’m almost 30, but in some situations, especially when there’s pressure, you should still check. that I’m only 21,” says the rapper.
She says that she has been hearing since she was a child that she is actually far too mature. “I think there are such old souls and my mom always said: “You’ve easily been in this world 80 times.”
Everything seems as if the 21-year-old’s career isn’t over after this album. She was recently nominated for Bambi. And what about home? “Maybe I need to look at it differently. Maybe it’s really just the people who are my home and not a place,” she states. “I mean, things change too. Some places you used to go to just aren’t there anymore and you have to let that go.”