He was listed along with Antoine Busnois and Hayne van Ghizeghem as one of the personal singers to Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy.
Little is known about his early life, and he first appears in the records as a singer to Isabella of Bourbon, who was the wife of Charles the Bold.
After the death of Charles at the Battle of Nancy in 1477, Basin served the court as a diplomat, according to records from the 1480s.
Before the advent of music printing at the beginning of the 16th century, such distribution is rare, and generally shows the popularity of a piece.
This song, included in the Mellon Chansonnier, is the only one securely attributed to Adrien Basin: his others, ascribed simply to 'Basin' in their sources, may have been written by his brother.