Unless you’re Indigenous, you’re to some degree a child of empire. Actually, even if you’re Indigenous, unless you belong to an isolated tribe somehow untouched by the outside world, your personal and shared histories have been affected by imperialism.
Some of us are privileged enough not to think about how large forces, such as imperialism, have interacted with our ancestry, our life paths, and our individuality. Empire Child, as the name suggests, isn’t about that kind of avoidance. Empire Child makes music about facing up to forces large and small, external and internal.
Hearing Empire Child isn’t like reading a term paper on identity, though. This music provides pure pleasure, leaving you feeling as if you’ve journeyed somewhere. You’ve experienced things. You’ve learned, earned, partied, rested, and then returned home to consider where you’ve been and where you’ll go next.
Imagine lovingly crafted sounds that acknowledge genres but cross borders. Imagine lightly soulful, glisteningly electronic, sometimes jazzy grooves that might remind you of Sade‘s recordings. Imagine a voice that starts with Sade’s smoothness, moves to Sarah Vaughan‘s silkiness, and employs Minnie Riperton’s range. Mix in some Kate Bush, not as a challenging experimentalist but as a ballad singer—her duet with Peter Gabriel, “Don’t Give Up”, comes to mind. Now add lyrics that explore how the past informs the present, emphasizing, as “Don’t Give Up” does, positivity and forward motion.
You’re in the hands of Ruth Rothwell, otherwise known as Empire Child, whose debut album, The Empire Child, has been released by Fine Roots Recordings. Rothwell brings a lifetime of experience to the sounds, spirits, and ideas of Empire Child. In fact, she brings several lifetimes to bear, drawing on her relatives’ backgrounds as well as her own. Rothwell was born in London. Her father had fled the apartheid of his native Cape Town, South Africa. Her mother, an Indo-Jamaican, had emigrated in the “Windrush generation” of 1948-1973, part of the UK’s postwar rebuilding effort. (Imagine that—a government not limiting but encouraging immigration to boost its socioeconomic interests.)
In the 1990s, Rothwell brought her multicultural perspective to the UK dance music scene, first as a club promoter and then as manager of the dance label BCM Records. From MCA Publishing, she progressed to senior A&R manager at MCA/Universal. Among the artists she worked with in these various positions were Digital Underground, Andrew Weatherall, Dina Carroll, Juan Atkins, Zero 7, Basement Jaxx, and Air.
Having nurtured artists and songwriters, Rothwell has nurtured herself into the Empire Child roles of artist and songwriter. Creating music was her first—and, she feels, true—calling. Drawing on her wide-ranging musical taste and deep knowledge of pop, yet miraculously coming across as a creative force and not just a music nerd (no offence to music nerds), she recorded this album in Madrid with the keyboardist, composer, and producer Mariano Díaz, who is best known for performing with the Spanish singers Ana Belén and Victor Manuel.
The album’s exquisite opening track, “Mind Be Free”, displays Rothwell and Díaz’s collaboration. The sensitive combination of piano, bass, and drums might call to mind McCoy Tyner‘s gentler recordings, solo or with the John Coltrane Quartet. A listener might hang on every note and beat because each one matters, but the musicians don’t display their talents as much as provide the backdrop for Rothwell’s high, sweet vocal.
“Let your mind be free”, Rothwell sings, her voice right and rightfully up front. The lyrics then take an unexpected turn: “Take responsibility for your actions / For your love.” In other words, a free mind doesn’t necessarily mean a lack of restraint. Via email, Rothwell explains to me that this song is about “the ability to be present and really acknowledge your place in the world… to stop sometimes and think about [your role in a given] situation”. The lyrics to “Mind Be Free” might not look musical, but Rothwell caresses them, infusing them with melody and a sense of purpose.
“Like the water ebbs and flows,” Rothwell sings on the next track, “Right Place”, “Where it goes? / Nobody knows.” The music flows in the jazzy vein of “Mind Be Free”, but moves gently into the Sade-meets-Riperton groove. Those singers have embodied supreme confidence, the sureness of landing notes and phrases in the pocket, and here Rothwell exhibits the same steady sense of what the song requires. She’s “in the right place / At the right time”, and her melodic variations keep returning to the right place.
“Cut Those Ties” shifts into a 1960s pop paradise, with a strummed guitar leading a full-band arrangement. Think Burt Bacharach if he’d worked with a Brazilian samba singer. The sunshine pouring in contrasts pleasurably with Rothwell’s declarations that she’s “cutting ties / With my old life.” For each listener, these ties can be different. Whatever the cuts literally consist of, they need to be made for new growth to happen. “It’s a wake-up call”, Rothwell explains. “Certain ties can enrich your life, but others can definitely hurt you and hold you back”.
Now take that track’s Brazilian vibe and positive attitude, add some Portishead-light lilt and electric instrumentation, and you have “Negativity Be Gone”. If you’ve cut some ties, you can establish new ones. “Find the good people”, Rothwell sings. “Don’t let anyone infect your soul”.
Now bring it down, bring it down. It’s time to get serious, slow, and moody. Rothwell knows the pain of “sadness and depression” and how hard it can be to feel better. “Everyone is unique”, she notes, “so finding your healing ritual that nurtures and supports you is essential”. In “Feeling of Healing”, to both convey the depths and encourage the good vibrations promised in the title, Rothwell and Díaz create a mesmerizing, percussionless arrangement of repeated piano figures and gliding strings. In her lyrics, Rothwell advises herself and the listener. To counter “The feeling you’re broken, can’t be fixed”, you need to “Keep on going”.
An electric piano and a Miles Davis-inspired horn open “Step Up Step On”, which continues the meditative portion of the album. The key is to move “one step closer to your goal”. “By just making that step you start something,” Rothwell notes.
Whether “Trace the Race”, the album’s single, represents one more step on the journey or is in fact the goal, Rothwell leaves up to the listener to decide. The song’s “a testament to tenacity and fearlessness”, she tells me. It’s also a description of self-understanding, in which Rothwell sings: “Trace the race, who made this face / The palette, the color, the tone, my skin, my taste.” The music’s electronic sheen and moaning bass will be familiar to fans of late Talk Talk and late Roxy Music.
The atmosphere totally changes for “By Boat”, which brings back the drums for a reggae party. Here, Rothwell celebrates “how so many different races ended up in different parts of the world… This song is about my ancestors who went to Jamaica from India in search of a better life.” Rothwell sings in dialect, “Ow dem did get there.” The answer to that question is, of course, “by boat”. Her ancestors brought with them “so much culture, food and spirituality”, or as she puts it in the song: “Talkin bout di Mango, di Chillum pipe, di Ganja, Dal and Rice.”
“I Am the Knight” is my pick for the next big hit at sophisticated dance clubs. Rothwell and Díaz deliver disco beats that sound both comfortingly familiar and so irresistible they’re forever fresh, plus funky guitar and tasty horns from some lost 1970s single. Rothwell’s high voice begs for a segue from Anita Ward’s classic “Ring My Bell”. Issuing what she terms a “clarion call to women”, Rothwell sings: “I am the Knight / I hold on tight, to my white horse to ride and be free / I will get through this, you’ll get through this, yeah / Start the fight and resist / We are, we are, the Knights.” DJs, please now cue up Gloria Gaynor’s classic “I Will Survive”.
The closer, “Peacefully Does It”, lives up to its title. If war is “anger on a mass scale”, Rothwell explains, then “I think if we had more time to focus on ourselves”—in other words, if economics were more equitable and people weren’t so stressed out about money and material success—”we would find time to process our feelings better. That’s my hope anyway!” Rothwell’s lyrics enact the struggle and the healing process:
“I am frustrated and anxious, and anger grows / I know, I’m deflated, I won’t go with the flow / Breath in, breath out / Breath in, breath out / Peacefully does it, peacefully does it / When you’ve lost your inner sense / Peacefully does it, peacefully does it / Peacefully does it, my friends.”
The music combines chiming sounds with elongated textures, like punctuation marks in a prayer. ” I wish you peace,” Rothwell seems to say. Thank you for listening. Good luck with your journey from wherever you’ve been to wherever you’re going.
However we identify ourselves, we all have pasts, and our pasts have pasts. When we’re lucky, we get to choose who we are and what we make of what has happened. Ruth Rothwell has chosen to turn some of her past, present, and foreseeable future into the art of Empire Child. By realizing that dream, she is realizing herself. At the same time, she’s reaching out with a sense of progress that we all can use—appreciate, benefit from, and employ as our own starting points. We can also just sit back and enjoy some beautiful songs.
Readers, listeners: Step up!