Rita Carter almost gave up playing music when she became pregnant.
The life of a musician is no place to be raising a child, she thought, figuring it was time to settle down and get a government job. After recording two independent albums of her own material, the prospect was depressing.
“I had this sense I was lost,” says the soulful R&B singer-songwriter who brings her band to the House of PainT festival Sunday. “But when my son’s father and I split up, I had to get back in the music.”
Her good friend, the Ottawa hip hop artist Aspects, helped steer her back to the music scene, but even then, she was uncertain. “I didn’t know if I should continue because it’s a lot of energy and resources and money and time away from my son,” says the 30-year-old artist. “I can’t be in the bar every weekend.”
Carter decided to take a year off, “to re-evaluate and find myself as a mother,” and put her third album on the back burner. She returned to performing a year ago, and has been reworking the new project in hopes of releasing it next year. She also has a full-time contract job with RBC Bluesfest, and is planning a career-development trip to the U.K. this fall.
Born and raised in Ottawa to Uganda-born parents with eclectic musical tastes (everything from Tracy Chapman, Bob Marley and Hank Williams to African soukous music), Carter is the third of four children who grew up in the south end making up songs with her older brother and putting on shows for the family. When Bluesfest’s Blues in the Schools program came to her elementary school, she was captivated by one of the instructors, Ottawa singer Maria Hawkins, and at the age of nine, started playing around on guitar.
Living in a neighbourhood that’s part of the catchment zone for the arts-centric Canterbury high school, Carter started in the drama program, but switched to the regular stream, where she discovered the school’s recording studio. Still, it wasn’t until university that she realized how much she loved music. Writing songs was far more satisfying than writing sociology essays, it turned out.
“I always knew I could sing, but I guess I discovered songwriting in university. I definitely would procrastinate and mess around on guitar,” she says. Her first song, the folky but hard-hitting Genocide, was written after seeing Romeo Dallaire speak at Carleton University.
With a reggae lilt and a powerful message of awareness, Genocide was a song that poured out almost unconsciously. “I find the best songs, the ones that get the most reaction, are the ones that have completely flown out of me,” Carter says. “It’s like I’m not even there. You catch the Holy Ghost or something. There’s not a single erase mark or scratch-out. Everything just flows.”
Genocide was released on Carter’s 2009 second album, All of Me, a more fully realized followup to her debut EP, A Piece of Me, which was almost entirely self-made. The third installment in the trilogy will be All of We, the one she’s working on now.
From her Me to We albums, Carter’s music is evolving. “The focus of the writing now is a lot more relatable universally, not so personal,” she says. “And also not being so solo. On this album, every song has a guest featured.”
Part of the reason for that is to shine the spotlight on talented Ottawa friends such as Aspects. “I love this city,” Carter says. “I feel like I’ve developed as an artist because of the artistic community here and I want to give back.”
There’s also a political bent to the new material, which not only comes from growing up in a government town but also being a parent and seeing the turbulence south of the border.
“What I think most about is my son,” Carter says. “I’m raising a black boy, a very confident and rambunctious boy. He’s turning four next week. It’s not just what’s going on in the States — it’s rampant. I don’t remember so many shootings in Ottawa when I was young.”
One new song, Shot Anotha Down, addresses the issue.
“I don’t know what the solution is,” Carter says. “But what I can do is sing about it, rap about it and bring awareness about it, and hopefully effect change that way.”
Source: Ottawa Citizen