Ruth Rothwell has spent decades building other people’s careers. As a senior A&R manager at MCA/Universal, she helped launch Digital Underground in the UK, worked with Andrew Weatherall, developed Dina Carroll, Carleen Anderson, and Juan Atkins, signed Zero 7, Basement Jaxx, and Air, and put Eg White forward for a co-write with a newly signed Adele that became “Chasing Pavements.” Now she’s making music under her own name, as Empire Child, and the new single “Negativity Be Gone” is out now.
The track is produced by Madrid-based jazz professor and producer Mariano Diaz, and it carries the same forward-moving spirit as its title. Rooted in jazz, soul, singer-songwriter intimacy, and subtle reggae influence, it’s a song about reclaiming mental space, pushing out self-doubt, and choosing who and what gets your energy. Rothwell frames it simply: “I’m trying to get the message across that we have choices. Choices about what we think and who we surround ourselves with.”
“Negativity Be Gone” follows the debut single “Trace the Race,” a deeply personal reflection on identity and ancestry drawn from Rothwell’s own heritage, her mother Indo-Jamaican and part of the Windrush generation, her father from Cape Town, South Africa, having fled apartheid. The wider album expands on those themes, tracing a life shaped by London, resilience, and the courage to move forward.
This is an artist who knows exactly how the music industry works, and has chosen, after all of it, to stand in front of the mic herself. “Negativity Be Gone” makes a strong case that the wait was worth it.