Baga Chipz and Saara Aalto on channelling Madonna and putting Taylor Swift to shame with their new video
Baga Chipz (L) and Saara Aalto (R)
Baga Chipz and Saara Aalto sat down with PinkNews to discuss their new collaboration “When the Sun Goes Down”.
Fans of reality TV and all things camp were overjoyed when it was announced that X Factor and Eurovision star Saara Aalto would be teaming up with the Drag Race UK legend Baga Chipz.
Their new single, “When the Sun Goes Down”, has been praised by fans as a sophisticated bop with an important message: to “be yourself”, don’t let “anyone judge you, and party and party until the sun goes down”.
Saara told PinkNews that the song is something she has had up her sleeve for “two years or so”.
“I love RuPaul’s Drag Race and I just had this idea to have a drag queen in the song,” Saara said.
“All these superstars like Taylor Swift and Little Mix have drag queens in their videos, looking good and posing.
“But I wanted to do something different and brave. I want this drag queen to actually sing,I want to give that drag queen a voice.”
Baga came into the picture after Saara messaged her on Twitter, asking: “Do you want to sing with me?”
The drag superstar joked she couldn’t “type fast enough”, and was thrilled to sing on a track altogether different from the usual “RuPaul-y, do a death drop and flicks my hair” identikit bop.
When asked about the inspiration behind the fabulous music video – which sees the pair hiding from paparazzi in a fancy hotel – Baga said “it was very ‘Blonde Ambition'”.
Saara added: “The inspiration was In Bed With Madonna. So we kind of like followed that route.”
The Eurovision star said she was thrilled to live out her dream of being a in a girl band – something Baga has experience with.
“I like my fingers in many pies,” Baga said. “And obviously, I’m doing things with The Frock Destroyers [the group she formed on Drag Race UK with Divina de Campo and Blu Hydrangea],” said Baga.
Baga is careful to credit the show with “changing her life”, something that resonates with Saara too.
Reflecting on her time competing on The X Factor, Saara said: “I was famous in Finland already, and I had released albums on my own, but going to a new country being international was always a dream.
“It was the year of the Brexit vote,and me being openly lesbian coming in second on X Factor was like, how did it even happen? I don’t know.”
Another life-changing moment for Saara was her “lockdown wedding” earlier this year.
“I got married in April, and it was so weird,” she said. “I couldn’t invite my parents, so we did it in our living room!”
She revealed that it was an intimate setting, with only a few friends who were witnesses for the ceremony, and suggested that she may host a big party when the time is right so she can celebrate with family and friends.
Saara Aalto and Baga Chipz’s single “When the Sun Goes Down” is out now.
