How Ruth became RXTH and discovered her calling

Haywards Heath-based singer-songwriter RXTH has overcome lockdown limitations to release her debut single Beauty in the Spaces.

She has teamed up with a talented group of animators from Colombia to bring her new single to life in an accompanying YouTube video (https://youtu.be/ cUfDGdDHZ78).

“It’s a song about overcoming our physical limitations and leaning into the positive,” she explains.

“Our mind is very powerful. When we feel uncertain, a lot of fear comes up. We can choose to focus on that or we can choose to focus on the positive.”

As for the name RXTH, as RXTH explains, it is pronounced Ruth which is her real name.

“I think RXTH is much more interesting. Ruth is an old Biblical name. This is bringing it up to date! I like the intrigue of the name RXTH.

“I had been struggling with my name for a while. I was just using my name, but I wanted something that was authentic, something that was me, something that was not too fancy or unusual. And I just found it hard finding the right name. But this is still me. It is just a creative interpretation.

“When I was small my mum used to say ‘Ruth, it is not all about you.’ The name Ruth means compassion for the suffering of others, and losing the u is remembering that it is not all about you/u.

“And that is really helpful. I am quite introverted. I am quite shy. And I think that this is a good way of getting my music out there, that when you write music it is not all about you, that it is about the music, about the songs, that it is about sharing it, that it is about the way other people interact with it.

“Music has always been a part of my life. I was eight when I wrote my first song. It was not very good. I can’t claim to be some kind of child prodigy, but music has always been how I expressed myself. I have always had big feelings and needed to find creative, positive ways to express them and channel them. Creativity and art and music are just naturally what I do.

“A teacher made me perform against my will at the leavers’ assembly. Music was just me helping to make sense of what was going on, but she put me in the programme, and until the day I was saying that I was not going to do it. I was too nervous. I was performing my own song. I was so nervous that I thought I was going to pass out and die, but I went and did it and I had a moment… like the old National Lottery adverts where a big finger comes from out of the sky and says ‘It could be you!’

“I had been bullied at school at the time. I was so open and vulnerable and so heart out there. And I didn’t want to perform. But when I did, I realised that it was one of the best things that I have ever done. It was a pivotal moment. It really pushed me. It felt like this was my calling, that I really wanted to create and share music. I was so terrified. I didn’t want to put my head above the parapet, but I realised this was what I wanted to do.”

RXTH went on to do a degree in music at Leeds: “People were saying ‘What are you going to do with a degree in music?’ I said ‘I am going to be a songwriter and musician and work in the music industry. I was in a band for a while. I have worked in the music industry and I have written music for products.

“But this calling that I have had all these years to do my own stuff was what was really drawing me.

“People often say that the biggest happiness is just the other side of your biggest fear, and the next part of my development was a lot of inner work.

“I had to do a lot of work on my confidence to be able to share the music, which has led me on all sorts of interesting journeys, transformational practices and spiritual practices.”

All of which has led to the debut single...