Ruby Amanfu

When this Obaahema was in high school, she was told that her voice was too fuzzy to sing. But that did nothing to stop singer and song writer Ruby Amanfu from getting where she is today. The 22 year old woman is a slap in the face of complacency, armed with an album's worth of crispy soulful tunes, a merry determination to make the world take notice, and a killer smile. As her debut album proves throughout, Ruby has a voice that could melt ice coupled with choruses so seductive, so gloriously simple it's hard to believe no one's come up with them before. Her songs are positive and uplifting. With her delightful voice telling “good” stories that can heal you. Indeed, Ruby's youthful accomplishment makes it hard to believe this is a girl who grew up in a house where pop music was forbidden. As a child in a relatively strict, church-going family who moved from Ghana to Nashville when Ruby was just three, the only music she was exposed to was classical or Christian. ''Even jazz was too edgy for my parents back then,'' she laughs today, ''although they've changed now obviously.'' The young Ruby also sang in the local church, and remembers returning home with her brother and sister to mimic the traditional gospel songs they had to sing there. ''And no one wanted to admit it,'' she smiles, ''But we sounded good!'' Not long after, Ruby made an even more earth-shattering discovery. Pop music. ''A friend gave me my first album, which was Madonna's 'Like A Prayer''', she explains. ''I was 10 years old and I had to hide it under my pillow at night. It changed my musical world though. It really did.'' All told, it was an important age. Ruby changed schools to join a more diverse, high school and started playing the flute and writing songs - initially ''horrible love songs'' by her own admission. I think when I was about 11, I wrote this really tacky song called 'Be My Valentine' and I made all my friends sing it over the intercom at school for Valentines Day.'' Despite this, Ruby still hadn't realized what shape her future should take. In fact, all she wanted in the world was to be an opera singer. “I auditioned for the Nashville Symphony chorus at 15 and I made it. I was the youngest member and it was just so glorious to sing Handel's 'Messiah'. But I had to go through all that to realize I liked pop and I didn't want to be an opera singer,'' she smiles slyly. The realization coincided with the writing of her first proper pop song, 'Because Of Love'. Ruby performed it in front of her entire school, everyone loved it and the experience was enough to make her realize, ''okay, I can do this''. The guitar player who accompanied her on stage passed the song to a family friend, a local hippy called Dave who had a small studio in his house. Dave loved it and over the next two years, the pair wrote and recorded 10 tracks to form a locally released debut album, 'So Now The Whole World Knows'. The minute the record was completed, Ruby thought no more about it and headed off to Berklee College of Music in Boston to study music business and songwriting, teach herself the guitar and enjoy the close-knit writer's community of the college. Without any warning, Nashville suddenly started taking notice of the talent that had just slipped through its fingers. Everyone who had heard the record was clamouring to see Ruby live, so she hot-footed it back home to give her career her full attention. After a fruitless year of sweet talking record company execs, a track Ruby had written for someone else arrived at Polydor in London. No one cared who the song was meant for. They just wanted the girl singing on the tape. A few months later, Ruby was in the studio recording her debut album. The amazing result is her love of giddy infectious pop choruses (debut single 'Sugah') alongside angular upbeat folk ('Chocolate Pie'), sassy rock ('For Life') and a sprinkling of the smoothest R&B ('Know You Better') with her quirky, hypnotic - and not at all fuzzy - voice always the focus. Singer-songwriters may come and go but it's obvious within minutes that Ruby's debut album is more than just a one-minute wonder. It's the culmination of years of confusion, heartbreak, watching, growing and learning. Take standout track 'Chocolate Pie' for example. It starts off literally being about a little boy who really wants a piece of chocolate pie but can't because it's not ready yet. In the next scene he's a little older and he sees Keisha - and I used that name so people would know she's obviously not a ‘Mary-Sue’ - and he's been taught never to touch. It's a taboo. I just want to shed some light on the fact that it's not only okay to be in an interracial relationship – which I’ve done, but it's also unhealthy to close yourself up to new adventures.'' Clearly, this is not a girl to be dismissed with lazy comparisons and the usual clichés. This is a person with something to say and a peculiarly beautiful way of saying it.