Ancestry: An Introduction

In the run up to the release of the first single from my album, ‘Ancestry’ - funded by Arts Council England, the MOBO awards and Help Musicians UK - I wanted to write and explain what the album is about and what started me on the journey of writing it.

Let’s start with trees. Odd you may think, but stay with me. This is about my family tree of course, but the metaphor stretches further than that. My great grandfather Eric was the Conservator of Forestry (the big cheese) of both Jamaica and New Honduras in the 1950s. There’s an iconic picture in my family of him receiving his OBE from the Queen, and him and my great grandmother, Ruby, being the only people of colour on the lawn in front of Jamaica House. In my mind, there is this first tree that he planted, back in his green days, which is only now coming into full maturity. 

Meditating on this tree got me reflecting on how the rings through its trunk represent different generations facing different challenges and circumstances which affect their growth. Global contexts of colonial rule, patriarchy, migration, right down to the intricacies of personal choices, twists and turns that sit among those pillars of historical influence. And all those rings make up a wider story.

To me the rings of a tree have always represented the different parts of my inner-self as well, reflective of different ages and stages of life, mapping the storms and times of plenty. Telling these stories that have inspired and impacted me has been part of the writing process and also a way of personal and intergenerational healing of the past so as to transform it in the future. 

Let me go back to that first tree I dream of my great grandfather, Eric, planting. Once dismissed but now revered scientist Suzanne Simard writes in her book ‘Finding the Mother Tree’ that before trees die, being totally connected and interdependent with other trees in a forest, they release all of their nutrients back into the soil so that all the younger generations of trees can benefit from what they generated in their lifetime. I felt my ancestors did this too. 

When I thought of each generation there was a quality, a characteristic, a blessing that their life cultivated. The album is about me sensing what this is in each story and how I am claiming it as my own. This has connected me to an identity that, severed from my history in geography and culture, has left a space that has often felt empty and lacking, and even inferior in white spaces of my mum’s family and wider culture. Pride in my history not only reconnects me to part of myself, it also equips me to to face this time, the challenge of this moment in history and to have something rich and deep to give to my own daughter, who incidentally, is due to be born on the same day as the release of ‘Worthy’, the first single (tomorrow!!). 

Eric, when planting and conserving, was thinking generations ahead, way beyond his lifetime. He saw the need to conserve and protect against the extraction that was so linked with the colonial profit making project, and now with ecological and climate breakdown. Ironically it is those trees in Jamaica, and many other small island states, that are at heightened risk of extreme weather conditions and vulnerable to flooding, even though those nations did least to contribute to the problem. 

Ancestry is about asking, how can we be good ancestors at this pivotal moment in history?  What will be our legacy as a generation? What will we release ‘back into the soil’? How might we live and act in a way which truly takes the long view and contributes to our, metaphorical and literal, children, grandchildren and great grandchildren? How do we know who we are and what matters, and move against the tide, if we need to, to be part of a story that is bigger than ourselves and bigger than this moment? 

I would love to chat to you about your thoughts on all of these questions. I bet you have a lot to say too. I think they are some of the most important questions of our times. You can pre-order the album now on Bandcamp and come and pick up a signed copy from me at my launch show in Bristol in autumn and we can continue the conversation face to face. Or if you are not in the area, join my Patreon to chat with me online in my community space and I can mail you the album exclusively just before it drops. 

Thanks so much for reading and I look forward to hearing your thoughts on all the singles and the album. See tabs above for both Bandcamp and Patreon. 

Much love 

Sam x