Photography by Bastian Thiery.
If one didn’t know her, if one had never heard her music before, which song should one choose to get started with Balbina’s oeuvre? After a moment’s thought, she says: “Seife.”
It’s sweltering hot in Berlin-Mitte. Balbina sits in the shady courtyard of a café, a cappuccino on the small bistro table in front of her, looking entirely unbothered by the heat. As though she hadn’t just stepped off a packed, stuffy commuter train full of people like her, traveling in from the outskirts of Berlin into the city center. In contrast to the heavy summer air, Balbina radiates lightness and intention: she wears a full white skirt of sturdy fabric with striking lace, paired with a heavily starched blouse tied at the waist, accentuated shoulders, sculptural lines. Romance meets precision.
Just like her songs? In essence, yes. Balbina’s songwriting thrives on dualities and contradictions. Three or four seemingly random words – and suddenly an entire scene unfolds before you. Everyday objects and observations distilled into philosophy, in the most direct way. Intellectual? Absolutely. But never aloof – instead, quietly emotional.
Photography by Bastian Thiery.
In Seife, Balbina wonders whether there might be a kind of detergent for life’s mistakes – something like soap that scrubs stains from clothing. “Na toll, das hab ich nicht gewollt (…)! Schwamm drüber, ich wisch das schnell weg” / “Oh well, I didn’t want that (…)! Never mind, I’ll just wipe it away,” she sings, channeling something fundamentally human: remorse and helplessness. The song appeared on her 2014 EP Nichtstun. At the time, Der Spiegel called her “the most exciting thing German pop music has to offer right now.” Nichtstun wasn’t her debut, but it put things in motion. “I think Seife opened the most doors for me,” she says.
As a student, Balbina was introverted – she wrote poetry, made music, created things. As a teenager, she sometimes worked as a backing singer for studio recordings before finding a way into her own music through Berlin’s hip-hop scene. At first listen, Balbina’s sound seems far removed from rap or hip-hop – then as now. But you hear it in her phrasing, her flow, the rhythm of her delivery – traces of where she first learned to play with language and sound.
Photography by Bastian Thiery.
In collaborations with Maeckes or Ebow, her cinematic, avant-garde pop slips seamlessly into German rap, revealing its lyrical artistry. And yet, she also works regularly with the Babelsberg Film Orchestra. Once again: dualities that, in her hands, fit perfectly together.
Her fifth album, Infinity Tunes, came out this May – though initially it wasn’t meant to be the recording it came to be. She had nearly finished it when an official letter arrived: her father had died. The news shook her. And at the same time, she asked herself: “Why am I so sad? Do I even have the right to be?”
Balbina moved from Poland to Berlin with her parents when she was six years old but grew up with her mother. She had no real relationship with her father – just two exchanged letters in 36 years, even though he lived in the same city. Later, she discovered he had collected all of her records. “Crazy, isn’t it?” she muses. What’s the right way for a daughter to grieve a father who was never there – but whose fatherhood remained a fact?
She couldn’t resist addressing his death artistically. She scrapped her nearly finished record and began again. The result, Infinity Tunes, became a concept album grappling with life, death, and everything in between. The pain of breakups, told starkly in Alles Gute und viel Glück! (All the Best and Good Luck!). The migrant-child experience, described with such blunt clarity in Zwischen 2 Welten (Between Two Worlds) that any other post-migrant kid would immediately relate. Most directly, Vatertag (Father’s Day): “Der Tag, an dem mein Vater starb, war der Tag, an dem es plötzlich einen Vater gab. Vatertag.” / “The day my father died was the day I suddenly had a father. Father’s Day.” Now she has made peace with him. Working on the album was like therapy, she says.
Creativity, for Balbina, is total. “When I have a vision, I do everything I can to make it happen,” she says. On stage, in videos, in her book that visually accompanies Infinity Tunes – every detail is thought through. Outfits, mood, precision in each note – everything fits. Her artistry is not limited to music. In 2023 she co-founded Polyton, a kind of artists’ academy that grants an annual award, accompanied by a gala and magazine, where she guided the process as creative director. She’s also long been politically active, advocating for fair pay for musicians in a world dominated by opaque streaming payouts. She contributes ideas to creative agencies, writes film scores – most recently for Jovana Reisinger’s Unterwegs im Namen der Kaiserin (On the Road in the Name of the Empress).
“I always juggle a lot at once. It’s not like I cut myself off from the world when I’m working,” she says. But she admits she struggles with everyday life: “Laundry, bureaucracy, emails – I really can’t deal with reality.” She laughs: “I think I’m a bad friend too.” She’s stopped even bothering to RSVP to birthdays or parties. When she does show up, people are genuinely surprised.
Photography by Bastian Thiery.
At the end of May, shortly after Infinity Tunes was released, ZEITmagazin ran a cover story on her. The journalist Emilia Smechowski had followed her for two years, writing a layered portrait. The piece opened with a pointed line: Balbina is an important artist, but not a star. “And the truth is, she probably never will be.”
A brutal verdict? Balbina shakes her head. It’s more complicated. “Emilia and I talked a lot about stardom – what it even means to be a pop star today.” They agreed: Balbina doesn’t fit that template. And she’s fine with that. She creates because she must – not to please, not to pander. Her songs are often described as cerebral, difficult. On the radio, amidst a largely mainstream program, they stand out like a stubborn strand of hair.
But maybe that’s her strength. By refusing to play by the mainstream’s rules, Balbina shows her audience that individuality and stubbornness are possible and feasible. She opens a space where you can question yourself, your role, your reality. A world where you can say: No, I’m not going along with that.
So, is Balbina the embodiment of selfreflection as an artist? Of course not. Listening to her music is, above all, simply a joy.