‘Polish Björk’ Baddie Brings Avant-Pop Rebellion to Valletta This Friday

Valletta’s open-air Pjazza Teatru Rjal will echo with glitchy beats and Slavic fairy-tale whispers next Friday when Baddie – the Warsaw-born art-pop phenomenon dubbed “the Polish Björk” – lands on the island for her long-awaited Malta debut. For a capital that has spent the winter debating cruise-ship caps and pavement licenses, the arrival of a singer who once wore a 3-D printed crown of urban pigeon feathers feels like a collective gulp of oxygen.

“Malta keeps complaining it’s musically isolated,” says DJ and activist DJ Ruby, who will open the night with a bass-heavy set of Maltese electronica. “Yet when an artist like Baddie chooses us over Rome or Barcelona, we suddenly remember we’re a dot on the same Mediterranean map as everyone else.” The gig, organised by Rock on the Rock Foundation in partnership with Valletta’s 2018 European Capital of Culture legacy fund, is the first of a summer series designed to nudge the island toward risk-taking programming that doesn’t rely on 1980s nostalgia.

Baddie (real name: Basia Domańska) exploded onto European festival circuits in 2021 with her avant-pop album “Kurwa Piękność”, a record that stitches Polish folk samples into hyper-modern beats and tackles themes of reproductive rights, body autonomy and Slavic pagan goddesses. Think Björk’s sonic architecture colliding with Primal Scream’s swagger, all filtered through the experience of growing up female in a country that recently tightened abortion laws. Her live shows are part-gig, part-ritual: she’s been known to hand out rosemary sprigs to the crowd, inviting them to “burn away bad memories” during the encore.

For Maltese audiences, the timing feels pointed. The island is still reeling from last year’s abortion referendum debate and ongoing court cases on reproductive healthcare. “Art that speaks about bodies and agency is never just entertainment here,” notes Dr. Lara Camilleri, lecturer in Gender Studies at the University of Malta. “When an international artist places those issues centre-stage, local activists feel less alone.” Community group Young Progressive Beings will run an info stall at the venue, collecting signatures for a parliamentary petition to introduce buffer zones around clinics.

Economically, the one-off concert is modest – 1,200 tickets, priced between €25 and €45 – yet it punches above its weight. “We sold 40 % of inventory to foreigners within 48 hours,” reveals promoter Steve Delia, whose company is fielding emails from Polish fans combining the gig with long-weekend holidays in Gozo. “That’s the kind of niche cultural tourism Malta needs: people who’ll stay three nights, eat rabbit in Mgarr, rent electric bikes, not just the bucket-list cruise day-tripper.” Hotels within the city walls report a 15 % spike in occupancy for the weekend, while bars in Strait Street are planning after-party specials featuring żibelbomba cocktails – a cheeky nod to Baddie’s eco-friendly stance on plastic waste.

The cultural ripple is already visible. Students from the Malta School of Art have been invited to design the stage backdrop, recycling fishing nets collected at Għajn Tuffieħa into a translucent curtain lit by LED constellations. Meanwhile, a pop-up choir of 30 local singers will join Baddie on the closing track “Matka”, rehearsing phonetic Polish under the guidance of choral maestro Riccarda Pisani. “We may mispronounce ‘serce’,” laughs chorister Maria Pace, “but the sentiment of sisterhood translates.”

Backstage, Baddie herself is characteristically philosophical. “I grew up on stories of Maltese knights and honey-ring pastries,” she told Hot Malta via Zoom, clutching a mug of steaming yerba mate. “To me the Mediterranean is a liquid library of women’s voices bouncing between Sicily, Tripoli, Valletta. I’m just adding a Polish verse.”

As the city fortifications light up next week, Valletta will momentarily swap political bickering for bass-lines that throb like a pan-European heartbeat. Whether you come for the avant-garde fashion, the feminist anthems or simply to watch the moon rise over the Grand Harbour while a Warsaw siren howls about witches, one thing is certain: Malta’s cultural conversation just got louder – and infinitely more interesting.