This week we’re spending time with Peace to Make, the third studio album from Ruth B., released on the 21st of August. If the name doesn’t immediately land, the songs almost certainly will: the Edmonton-born, Ethiopian-Canadian singer-songwriter Ruth Berhe first surfaced a decade ago with “Lost Boy,” a Peter Pan song she built out of six-second Vine clips at her piano, and then found a whole second life when “Dandelions” — a quiet album track from 2017 — became a TikTok phenomenon years after the fact. The numbers are frankly ridiculous: over nine billion streams, a JUNO for Breakthrough Artist, and a song that keeps finding new listeners without her lifting a finger. What’s interesting is that she hasn’t tried to chase any of it. This is her first album in five years, and it’s the least commercial-sounding thing she’s made.
Peace to Make is a breakup record, but not the tidy kind. Co-produced with Grammy winner Cole M.G.N., the twelve tracks sit in a low-lit space between lo-fi pop and R&B — solemn acoustic guitar, piano, echoing backing vocals, the odd wash of synth or strings — and they resist wrapping things up neatly. Ruth has described the period behind it as “one of the most beautifully challenging and transformative times of my life,” and you can hear her working through it in real time rather than reporting back from the far side. Focus single “Jealous” is a good example: it’s not about envy of a rival so much as the ache of pouring love into someone and getting nothing back. “I’m jealous of the love that I’m giving someone else and not getting in return,” she says, “which is a thing that everyone feels at some point.” Elsewhere, “Best Days” is the album’s quiet showpiece — a genuinely haunting heartbreak song — and the closing run of “No Boundaries” into “Pick Me” turns the whole thing towards something warmer, a reckoning with what unconditional love actually asks of you.
It’s a grown-up record, and a brave one. Rather than reaching for another “Dandelions,” Ruth B. has made something small, vulnerable and unhurried, trusting that the writing will carry it — and it does.
New Zealand Net Radio plays a song from our irregularly updated #albumoftheweek every hour from 9am to 12pm. Listen on our website - https://www.nznetradio.net.nz/listen
