The Elements of Ruth

And from there her melodious voice takes you on a journey that includes idyllic, poetic imagery, the exploration of identity and the daily struggles of life.

Sunday Newsday caught up with the Trinidad-based Guyanese singer, songwriter and flautist to discuss her career, her love/hate relationship with the flute and her new album.

We begin her musical journey at about age five as Osman began performing in the children’s choir at church. At home her father, a jazz and classical music connoisseur, would be playing Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra and the “Rat Pack”.

As she wrote music for church that jazz influence from home came through. At age 11 her family moved to Dominica and she joined the Kairi School of Music, which is now defunct. She participated in their annual musicals and this was her first experience seeing other people craft music. She also learned about using the stage, audience interaction and gained confidence - the basics for a performer.

She furthered her music talents by taking lessons and from the recorder graduated to flute and voice.

The saxophone is her first love - it pairs so well with jazz - but her father thought it was too large an instrument for her and she should learn the flute or something else.

“It is a love/hate relationship with me and the flute. We grew to love each other. Right now we not so sure how we feel about each other.

We going through a rocky patch,” she analogised.

She explained that the flute is a very unforgiving instrument and “when you do not come home too often and engage in conversation she let’s you know and when you try to start a conversation she is like ‘no I not talking to you’.” Osman stressed that dedication and practice is necessary and she has determined this year that every day she would spend some time with the flute.

On becoming a jazz singer she said that part of her did not think it would happen. After all she was a Pentecostal church girl looking at a career in the sciences and later English literature.

A major contributor to her career was her decision to remain in Trinidad after she came her to do an arts and culture enterprise management postgraduate diploma.

“And I realised Trinidad was a good place to sort of build a career in the music industry,” she recalled.

She explained that her homeland of Guyana, “as beautiful as it is”, does not have much of a music scene and it would not be possible to perform a jazz artist as she does in Trinidad.

As part of her arts and culture diploma and afterwards she was able to musicians and people in that field including guitarist Marva Newton with whom she would subsequently perform together with for a number of years.

“So it was that sort of trajectory. It is still something you do on the side. Even now it is something I do on the side. (But) it is taking up a much bigger chunk of my life and my thinking life as well,” she said.

In 2013 she launched her debut album Letting Go which was a collection of songs she had written over her lifetime. The name of the album was chosen because she was finally releasing this material and it was a reflection of “who I was”.

“Extremely personal and very vulnerable and scary thing,” she recalled.

She described the reception to Letting Go, produced by Jason Dasent, as “okay” for a debut album in Trinidad and in a niche market. She said that it is a “hard space” especially as an emerging artist who is not soca or calypso.

Osman recalled, however, that the album “had to be done”.

“You can’t call yourself an artist if you don’t produce work,” she added, describing the album as a portfolio of her work.

Last year she felt that it was time to do a second album and had a body of work built up from her regular performances. She reasoned that if she wanted to take herself seriously as an artist, and remain relevant, she needed to release new music.

On the title of the album she explained that certain elements, like water and the forces of nature, had been featuring heavily in her music. It was also drawn from her view of life where she wants to focus on simplicity and finding the core of things where she finds her strength and fuel.

Elemental, she explained, represents not just nature and environmental awareness “but what makes us who we are” and the elemental nature of constructed identities.

Her identity would be as a writer, artist, wife and mother.

“Two people I would really like to thank for their support are my manager, Roger Watts and my husband, Veron Rose, who puts up with me,” she quipped.

The album features 10 tracks: three covers and seven original songs. The covers are “Morena Osha” by the late local musician Andr? Tanker, “Redemption Song” by the legendary Bob Marley and “In?til Paisagem” by late Brasilian songwriter Ant?nio Carlos Jobim. The original songs were written at different times of her life and while in different moods. Her favourite is “Everybody needs a song” which features the line “come to the water, let yourself ride, all of the feelings you’ve hidden inside”.

The song “Not Enough” was originally a jazz tune but she added a reggae vibe when she performed it with reggae artist Collis Duranty at Kaiso Blues Caf?.

“It was magic,” she recalled.

The song “River Calling” was produced by Mark Andre Augustus who also produced “In?til Paisagem” Osman said Augustus brought a Brazilian and Latin American feel which resonated with her as she is from South America.

“I thought Guyana jungle, Amazon,” she recalled.

The remainder of the album was produced by Keon Jeffrey and features her band of Wayne Guerra (keyboards), Sheena Richardson (percussion), Makesi Joseph (drums) and Natasha Joseph (pan).

Guest appearances were made on “Not Enough” by Courtney Fadlin (sax) and Duranty. She also thanked Theron Shaw who played on and arranged “Morena Osha” and “Oh Brother”.

Osman also displays her poetry talents on the album with the track “The Dark”. She explained that in her debut album she tailored everything to what the audience wanted and would expect but for this album she wanted to give them her poet side, which is what they would also experience in a live performance. She describes herself as an artist and not an entertainer and her music as “the kind of music you sink into and centre yourself”.

“I believe that everybody has a purpose. And I believe that my purpose is to use the gift of music and words to help influence my community.

The society in which I live. And it could be something simple as helping people feel they belong to a community and they are not alone. It could be something as profound as making them aware of their place in the world and the shared humanity,” she explained.

She explained that improvement could be an incremental shift in attitudes and mindsets and how we feel at the moment.

She also wants to connect everyone to their “Caribbeanness” and the people that share the space with them. She said the realisation of connectedness would make us a better people ranging from courtesy and kindness to changing world governments.

Over time her music started to shift from traditional jazz sound to “Caribbean folk” incorporating drums and certain rhythms, though it is still not as Caribbean as she wants it to be. “Something that sounds like home. What we do here or what we can do here,” she said.