Reykjavík Grapevine - sept 2021, Qupperneq 18

Nasty &
Classy
He’s Bassi Maraj… what else can you say?
Words: Hannah Jane Cohen Photos: Supplied by artist
“Nasty-tude… and class mixed to-
gether. Cla-nast-itude,” rapper and
reality star Bassi Maraj says coyly,
when asked to describe himself in
a few words. The current darling of
Iceland, Bassi is, to put it bluntly,
a force of nature. If you need ex-
amples, just know that in only the
past months, among other things,
he’s gotten into Twitter beef with
Bjarni Ben and recorded the of-
ficial 2021 Reykjavík Pride song.
Who else can compare?
“I’m nast y and classy,” he
laughs. “That’s it.”
A born performer
The 22-year old burst onto the
scene as a member of ‘Æ!i’—Ice-
land’s first genuine reality TV
show—which stars Bassi and his
friends Patrekur Jaime and Binni
as they navigate life in this fair
country. Think the Kardashians,
but more gay, likeable and with
better drama.
But then Bassi changed gears,
releasing a single “Álit” which was
followed by his namesake “Bassi
Maraj”. The song blew up, creat-
ing a level of hype not seen since
“B.o.B.a.” or “Joey Cypher”.
One typically expects a real-
ity or social media star’s entry
into music to be rather terrible—
we’ve all seen Addison Rae’s “Ob-
sessed,” literally anything by Di-
xie D’Amelio and, of course, Jake
Paul—but Bassi wowed everyone
by being fucking fantastic. His
music quickly overshadowed his
reality TV career and he’s now a re-
spected rapper in the scene, work-
ing with big name producers like
DJ Nazareth and BNGRBOY, and
performing at big live shows. So
don’t be surprised if his TV pres-
ence quickly becomes a small note
in his Wikipedia page. We wouldn’t
be. The guy’s a born performer.
Surprise! Not trash!
“Everyone was like, ‘Yeah, I
expected it to be trash!’ And then
they heard it and said, ‘No, you
didn’t write that. Who’s writing
your songs?’” Bassi laughs, remem-
bering the days before his first re-
lease. In person, he’s exactly the
same lovely over-the-top character
you see on ‘Æ!i’—absolutely noth-
ing is played up for the camera.
“And I was like, um, nobody—who
else would make songs about gay
sex and cum?”
No one in Iceland, for sure.
Minaj/Maraj
His artist name is a reference to
Nicki Minaj, whose real name is
Onika Tanya Maraj-Petty. Bassi’s
obsessed with her, and her influ-
ence is clear in his verses—many
of which, translated into English,
could easily be Minaj lines.
While, perhaps, the nuances of
his lyrics might be lost on the non-
Icelandic-speaking crowd, we’ve
done our best to translate them in
a poetic way:
It’s not hard for me to attract
semen
I’m not a housewife even
though I’m baked
I’m grilling motherfuckers so
they call me steak
I don’t fuck with you ‘cause
you’re fake
I’m Bassi Maraj
What’s the stunt?
Bassi’s currently working on his
first EP, which should be released
sometime soon. As you’d expect,
he’s planning on dropping it with
a bang.
“It’s five songs. I want to do
something crazy before I release it
so I was thinking, what stunt can
I do?” he says, smirking. “Then I
thought maybe I’ll just write the
release date in poop on Al"ingi.”
Then he bursts out laughing. “No,
I won’t.”
But even if he did, don’t pretend
to be surprised. As he said, he’s
nasty and classy.
18The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 09— 2021
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“Who else
would make
songs about
gay sex and
cum?”
gpv.is/music
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