Ruti

The fate of talent show contestants has always been mixed. There’s the Harry Styles outcome, and then the other outcome: no matter where you place in a televised talent show, your fate is far from secure. When Ruti Olajugbagbe auditioned for The Voice in 2018, she had no plans to win it. The fact that she did was exciting - until it wasn’t. With her TV days behind her, she’s back with a new EP full of music that draws on everything from R&B and pop to folk storytelling and soul - it fizzes with her own ideas, and contains thoughts and feelings that really matter to her. Born and raised in Essex, Ruti had no grand plans to be a singer when she was little. She loved dance and dreamed instead of being part of a big West End show. When she was 10, she entered a talent show on summer holiday with her family and, with all the confidence of a precocious ten-year-old, sang one of her favourite songs: Rolling In The Deep by Adele. Ruti loved the attention, she loved how she felt on stage and, having recently watched back the video her dad took of her big singing debut, she says she wasn’t half bad either. Still, it wasn’t that big a deal. She went on to audition for a place at a secondary school that specialised in performing arts as a dancer, and though she took singing lessons and enjoyed the academic side of music, she dreamed more of producing soundtracks and dancing than she did of singing. One day, her mum got a phone call from a man called Mark who was a friend of Ruti’s singing teacher and had heard her sing before. He was aware a producer friend was looking for The Voice contestants and he thought of Ruti right away. At just 16 at the time, Ruti, said an emphatic no thanks - but when Mark called back to double check and suggest she treat it as an experience or at least a fun day out, she decided to give it a shot. The Ruti you might remember from The Voice was an angel-voiced, baby-faced sweetheart, singing big songs and being mentored by Sir Tom Jones. She hadn’t expected to get through, nor to make it so far through the contest and never in a million years to win. But she won audiences over and took the top spot. Weeks of repetitive television interviews followed where she nervously tried to say what she thought she was meant to, and the release of her winning cover (The Cranberries’ Dreams) which went to number 14 in the UK singles charts. But it wasn’t the dream that it seemed to be on the surface. Ruti hated the version of Dreams that was released, she felt anxious and uncomfortable on talk show sofas and her record contract turned out to be a bit of an albatross. Now 23, she looks back at that time of her life without regret but with a sense of sympathy for her younger self. “It was just a lot of not knowing where I stood,” she says, looking back. “People not talking to me or communicating with me at all - they’re just making decisions for you - or worse, not really doing anything. I didn’t know what was going on, so most of the time I felt like I was doing something wrong because nothing’s happening.” She was cajoled into making radio-friendly pop music with the big topliners of the time, which was fine but wasn’t her decision or her first choice of style. “There were some times when I didn’t feel comfortable in writing sessions,” she adds. “I felt so anxious.” She wasn’t given the opportunity to perform either - the one thing she had always wanted to do was be on stage - and though she’d float the idea to her label team, the shows would never materialise. Eventually Ruti put on her own show in her hometown and sold it out. Although she released one EP during this era (which “surprised everyone, because it was decent” she laughs) it was a kind of relief when the year-long contract came to an end. And so began the second age of Ruti: still a teenager, back at home but finally with the time and space to figure out the music she actually wanted to make. She took on a manager, the man who had connected her with The Voice in the first place, and set about writing, going to gigs and honing her craft. She released All At Once independently in 2021, an EP of louche alt-pop, and continued to write and release music throughout the pandemic. Now signed to PMR Records, Ruti is back with a vibrant, thrilling and emotional mixtape of songs that not only sound like Ruti but feel like the person she has become. “My voice now is so much better, I’ve developed so much. I’ve really found a style,” she says with a hint of relief. “Actually not even a style - I’ve just figured out that I can do whatever I want.” The contemporary artists she cites as inspiration are an eclectic bunch of trailblazers - Lady Gaga, Charli XCX, Rina Sawayama - artists who have a tenacity and desire to do whatever feels and sounds good regardless of genre or formal constraint. “I don’t really think that I’m pop in the way people had wanted me to be. But when I had the space to try stuff out and got comfortable enough to say things like ‘Oh can we use this chord progression, can we try this”, I think I realised that I really do like lots of pop - at first I was like ‘Oh no, I’m a pop artist definitely’! But it’s inspired by soul, jazz, R&B and folk music too - I just do whatever I want.” Each song on the mixtape has the underlying message of openness, of not hiding yourself away. “I’m not ashamed of how I feel - I’m not scared of stepping into a more intimate relationship with a person,” she says, referencing her Christian upbringing that left her feeling conflicting emotions about romantic love. “As long as it’s consensual, I don’t know why anyone should feel shame for having a relationship.” A lot has changed for Ruti since she stepped onto The Voice’s stage. She’s no longer a child following orders: she has found herself, her style, her own voice - not to mention a team that shares her vision. In Summer 2022, the universe gave her a sign that she was on the right track. The woman whose song she first performed live invited her to join the line-up for two huge shows and so Ruti supported Adele in Hyde Park. As big as that moment was, there are bigger things on the horizon for Ruti now that she is fully herself. “I’m just going to keep doing what I want to do at the time,” she adds. “No more compromises.”