Melodifestivalen 2025 saw a true underdog story with KAJ and ‘Bara Bada Bastu’, and now they’ll be heading to Basel to represent Sweden at Eurovision 2025.
Read on to find out more about them!
Who Are KAJ?
KAJ are a Finnish humour-group consisting of Kevin Holmström, Jakob NorrgÃ¥rd and Axel Ã…hman. All born in 1993, Kevin and Jakob now reside in Helsinki (Kevin was rasied in Komossa and Jakob in Maxmo) whilst Axel lives in Vaasa – growing up in VörÃ¥. As they hail from one of the Swedish-speaking areas of Finland, their music is performed in the VörÃ¥ dialect – which includes extra vowels and dipthongs. Despite meeting one another at seperate times, they eventually attended the same school together – becoming friends and forming KAJ in 2009.
Career So Far
In 2012, KAJ released their first album ‘Professionella Pjaslappar‘ and a year later they won both the Leif Sjöström Award and Best Amateur Production in Film/TV/Video Award for their single ‘Heimani i Skick‘ at the Nöjesgalan. Their second album ‘Lokalproducerat pjas’ came in 2014 – featuring one of their most popular singles ‘JÃ¥o nÃ¥o e ja jÃ¥o YOLO ja nÃ¥o’, which currently has just over 2 million streams on Spotify. Their success that year saw them be awarded the Svenska Natten medal for their promotion of the Swedish-Finnish dialects.
‘Kom ti byin’ dropped in 2016, and afterwards the trio forayed into the world of musicals – their first, Gambämark, took to Wassa Theatre in 2018. After releasing ‘Born to Börn’ in 2019 and celebrating their 10 year anniversary, they went on to produce another musical, Botnia Paradise, which took place in 2021. Their latest musical output prior to their Melodifestivalen win is their seventh album ‘Karar i arbeit’ from 2024.
Melodifestivalen 2025
KAJ were announced as one of 30 artists taking part in Melodifestivalen 2025 in November of 2024 with ‘Bara Bada Bastu’, and were scheduled to perform in Heat 4 alongside Andreas Lundstedt, Ella Tiritiello, Tennesee Tears, AmenA and MÃ¥ns Zelmerlöw. Last in the odds going into the competition, KAJ’s rehearsal clip sparked intrigue from fans – but they faced stiff competition in the heat from MÃ¥ns, the former winner of Melfest and Eurovision 2015 and favourite to win Melodifestivalen 2025. His song ‘Revolution‘ won Heat 4 – but KAJ’s performance sailed to 2nd place, heading directly to the final in the second round of voting. It became a two horse race between the contestants from there on, with KAJ’s popularity soaring almost instantly after heat 4 and seeing them jump to second in the odds. Drawn to perform last in the final, the jury vote – a shock to some – saw KAJ place 2nd with 74 points – just two points behind ‘Revolution’ on 76. It was all over when the televote came in – KAJ recieving 90 points in comparison to MÃ¥ns’ 81, with the combined score giving ‘Revolution’ 157 points to ‘Bara Bada Bastu’s 164 – seeing KAJ be declared the winner of Melodifestivalen 2025.
On March 14th 2025, SVT released the detailed voting results of the competition, and not only did KAJ landslide the final vote, but they became the most voted for contestant in the history of Melodifestivalen; the top 5 being:
- KAJ: ‘Bara Bada Bastu’ 4,305,774 votes (2025)
- Loreen: ‘Tattoo’ 3,783,148 votes (2023)
- Anders Bagge: ‘Bigger Than the Universe’ 3,464,137 votes (2022)
- MÃ¥ns Zelmerlöw: ‘Revolution’ 3,278,385 votes (2025)
- Marcus & Martinus: ‘Unforgettable’ 3,186,801 votes (2023)
This isn’t the only impressive part of their win. ‘Bara Bada Bastu’ also has a lot of ‘firsts’. It will be the first time:
- We hear Swedish in a competitive Eurovision entry since Finland sent ‘När Jag Blundar’ in 2012
- A song in Swedish has won Melodifestivalen since 2006 (although Carola translated ‘Evighet‘ to ‘Invincible’ for Eurovision’)
- Sweden has sent a song in their native language for 25 years and first ever time since the millennium – the last being ‘Kärleken är‘ in 1998.
- Without the language rule, that Sweden have voluntarily selected a song in their native language for over 60 years – their last selection being ‘En gÃ¥ng i Stockholm‘
KAJ are also the second-ever all non-Swedish act to win Melodifestivalen after the Norweigan duo Marcus & Martinus in 2024.
The week after their win, KAJ rose to #1 on the Viral Top 50 Global on Spotify – a position previously held by Germany’s 2025 song ‘Baller‘ by Abor & Tynna, charting in the top #5 in multiple European countries Viral charts a few days later.
Eurovision 2025
At Eurovision 2025, Sweden will perform in the first half on Semi Final 1 on May 13th 2025.
Sweden, at the time of writing, remain at the top of the odds, ahead of Austria and France. Should KAJ win Eurovision, it will mark Swedens eighth win at the contest – making them the most successful country ever in terms of victories, and will mean we head back to the Scandinavian nation for the second time in the 2020s, and fourth time in less than 15 years.
We wish KAJ and Sweden the best of luck in Basel!
You can follow KAJ on social media!
Instagram: @humorgruppen.kaj
TikTok: @humorgruppen.kaj
Facebook: KAJ
