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AMSTERDAM – 21-year old Rox had her big breakthrough with hit single My Baby Left Me. Her debut album Memoirs is filled with soulful pop songs, yet it has nothing to do with a so called 'soul revival'. “I'm not trying to do something that's retro”, Rox says.

The half-Jamaican, half-Iranian Roxanne Tataei grew up in the London borough of Croydon. At age ten, she was part of the National Youth Music Theatre, but she learned to sing in the gospel choir of the church where her grandfather was a pastor.

Nowadays, religion plays no role in the young singer's life, but musically her going to the church has been of great use. “The songs we sang in church were, like, gospel hymns. Quite traditional. What it taught me was how important a narrative is in a song. It's also where my love for harmony has come from.” Rox remembers the first time she sang for more than ten people: it wasn't in church, but at her uncle's wedding. “When it came down to crunch time, I started to cry. I always find performing to your friends and family a lot more scary than performing to thousands of people that you don't know.”

With the release of Memoirs, Rox closes off a turbulent period in her life. Since she signed with Rough Trade in 2008, everything she did was for the sake of her debut album. “I started in London. Then I went to New Jersey for a bit to record the album. I worked with a producer called Commisioner Gordon [of Lauryn Hill fame, red.], and worked with some ridiculously talented old school musicians from Jamaica. So I had a lot of history added to the album. Then I came back home to London, where I finished the record off.”

At age 18, Rox already started working on – what turned out to be – Memoirs in Mexico. “I went traveling, because I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. I didn't want to go to university, I didn't want to work, so I thought: let me do some charity. There was a guitar in the voluntary house, so I ended up writing many songs. They are just sitting on the side waiting to be picked up again, so fingers crossed that I'll have the opportunity to make many more albums.”

When asked if she's part of the soul revival that arose after the success of Amy Winehouse, she reacts somewhat agitated. “Ever since Amy came out, every female artist after her that has done soul has been compared to her. I'm not trying to do something that's retro. My whole aim of this album was to try and do something that was classic and not taken from a period of time.”

Memoirs was released on June 7th through Rough Trade.
Rox live: http://thisisrox.com/gigs.

Interview and text: Tom Springveld

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