Mereba exudes a palpable warmth. When she speaks, as she did with me via Zoom one evening in late January, she’s gentle and perceptive, speaking in soft, meandering passages that paint an intimate portrait of the LA-based singer’s mind. Similarly, her stirring discography, which dates back to 2013, evokes a keen sense of serene intimacy. “I’m inspired by those little moments in life where you’re like “Ah that’s really beautiful,”” she tells me halfway into our conversation, making sense of the ethereal quality that her music possesses. “It could be an interaction between two people, it could be something in nature, it could be a memory I have. Those are the moments that drive me to go get my guitar and write a song.”

The 34-year-old singer, songwriter, producer and instrumentalist has been writing songs for as long as she can remember. Growing up between Alabama, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, as well as an unintended one-year stint in her father’s native Ethiopia, ensured that Mereba picked up a wealth of influences that would go on to inform her richly diverse and understated sound. After years living across multiple cities, she finally settled in Atlanta where she became a staple in the city’s indie music circuit. “There, I met my peers who I made music with and are still my peers to this day. People like J.I.D, 6LACK and my crew. We all were just coming up during a really rich time of music there so that was a big part of my journey,” she reminisces fondly. 

In the years that Mereba lived in Atlanta, she released 2013’s ‘Room For Living’ and ‘Kotton House Vol 1,’ two extended plays that neatly outline the foundations of the balmy and eclectic style that she would perfect years later, leaving ample room for her soothing vocals and evocative songwriting to shine. She also joined Spillage Village, a musical collective that comprises others like Earth Gang and JID, contributing to various releases like ‘Bears Like This Too Much’ and the critically acclaimed ‘Spilligion.’ Following her time in Atlanta, Mereba moved again, this time to Los Angeles, where she signed her first major record deal and released her debut album ‘The Jungle Is The Only Way Out.’

Since the release of ‘The Jungle Is The Only Way Out’ in 2019, Mereba has continued to hone her unique sound, continually experimenting and ironing out the rich textures of her temperate style on subsequent releases like 2021’s ‘AZEB.’ Ahead of the release of ‘The Breeze Grew A Fire,’ her first project in four years, we sat down with the LA-based singer to discuss the story behind her well-received debut, her various influences as well as the process of putting together her highly-anticipated new album. 

This is your first album in about five years. How are you feeling?

I feel really excited. I’m definitely excited to give my music back to the world again. I’m also ready for connection, performing the songs, and sharing these new stories. 

You’ve been making music for a long time now, but do you still feel any nerves before a major release like this?

I don’t know if it’s nerves. I think I feel anxious about the fact that the music is being released and people are going to hear it. But I guess I’m anxious in a good way for them to hear the music, to get to experience what I’ve been toiling away at and what I’ve been excited about for a while. It’s more like a good anxiety. 

I think the first time I came across your music was in 2019. I heard “Heatwave” with 6LACK off of your debut album ‘The Jungle Is The Only Way Out.’ I believe that album was sort of a breakthrough moment for you. Can you tell me a bit about how it came together?

That album coming together was quite a journey. I started ‘The Jungle Is The Only Way Out’ years before it came out. I had left Atlanta and moved to L.A at this point. I didn’t know so many people when I just moved and so I was kind of starting over in certain ways. I was writing a lot of songs that felt really powerful to me but they were sonically different from what I used to make before. I was also learning how to produce, I was in Ableton learning how to make beats and just produce my music. Because I didn’t know so many people, I couldn’t outsource some of these things so I was just experimenting on my sound on my own.

Over the years, the community that I was a part of in Atlanta, everyone started finding their way in music but we still stayed closely in touch even though I had moved to L.A. I featured on a song with J.I.D and that kind of got me back into making music properly again because at that point, I was working random jobs, my car got taken and I had to start taking the bus to work. I was living a completely different life. It was my friends that put me back in the zone. They would invite me to sessions and just remind me that I wanted to do this music thing. Then I started putting together songs I had made over the years like “Sandstorm” and “Heatwave” with 6LACK which we made way before the album came out and even my solo songs like “Black Truck.” Most of the songs on that album had come from that period where I was struggling but knowing I was meant for music somehow. 

How many years did it take to put your first album together?

I’ll say about four to five years. They say you write your first album for your whole life. “Highway 10” is the first song I made on that album. I made that song in 2014 and the album came out in 2019. In the years before the album came out I was signed to a bad record deal and I couldn’t get out, I couldn’t release music. All I could do was just create and that ended up forcing me to just hone in on my sound.

After your debut, you released an EP titled ‘AZEB’ two years later. Listening to that project, it felt lighter than your debut which was a lot darker and more melancholic. Do you remember what headspace you were in when you made this EP?

I was definitely feeling a lot lighter when I was making ‘AZEB.’ I felt like I had shed a lot of the weight that I carried during all those years of uncertainty. I was in a much more hopeful place when I was making one-half of the project. The other half was made during the early days of the pandemic so it was like a mix. Songs like “Rider,” “Beretta,” and “My Moon,” those songs represent beautiful, light type feelings to me while some of the other songs like “News Come,” and “Another Kin” are more intense lyrically and sonically. 

Let’s talk about ‘The Breeze Grew A Fire.’ How did you land on that as the title for your second album? 

The making of that title was different from how I titled my other projects. It didn’t come to me right away and I decided to not force it, I believed it was going to come eventually. So the making of this album has always felt very gentle. In contrast to what I had been through for so many years, I felt like I was in a much softer space creating this album and this feeling of a breeze just kept coming to me. It was also kind of like springtime going into the summer and the idea of a breeze became so prominent that I was going to title the album breeze. But as I continued on the journey of finishing it, it felt like the album was saying something a bit more. I realized that the album wasn’t just about all these gentle feelings and relationships I’m singing about like friendship, family, and my son but these things also inspire me to live with purpose, conviction and to have a spark in me. Things that make people “strong” are inspired by these little moments and experiences that we have and less by the force of trying to make a fire forcefully. 

You co-produced “Phone Me” and “Counterfeit,” the lead singles for this project and you’ve also produced a lot of your older stuff as well. I’m curious to know how taking the reins on the production side affects your music-making process in general.

I got really into producing during that period when I felt lost in life. I got into Ableton, playing the guitar on my computer, sampling my voice and just experimenting. So songs that I produced from ‘The Jungle Is The Only Way Out’ like “Sandstorm” and “Kinfolk,” were me experimenting a lot with learning how to produce. With this new album, the first two singles were heavily produced by my co-producer Sam Hoffman. When he sends me things that I like, I’ll add things to them and it could be the opposite as well where I produce a song and I’ll have him or another friend add something to it. That process is personal because I could completely be in my world and get the feelings that I want to convey out through production as well as writing the song out lyrically. When I unlocked that part of myself, it felt like my whole life that’s what I’ve been wanting to do. To be able to make the music arrangements and compositions come to life. 

A lot of the time I would start with a simple beat or drum loop and I’ll build chords over it with my guitar. I experiment with writing when it’s bare and then fill in the production as I write the song. They’re a very interwoven process. 

I’ve read that you’re heavily influenced by legendary acts like Stevie Wonder and Lauryn Hill. Are there other acts that inspire you when it comes to the production side of music specifically?

That’s a great question. In certain ways, I’ll say it’s the same people that I look up to because most of them produce. Interestingly enough, what I love most about these musicians is that they are very involved in the sonics of the music they’re making. So the people that you mentioned, like Stevie Wonder who mentored me and encouraged me to continue on the path of producing my music versus being a singer who works with a producer. I feel like it’s important to the language of an artist to at least know how to contribute in some way to the sonics of their music. 

I’ll say Quincy Jones is the blueprint for me just because of the span of work that he did. He’s the concept of producer I’d like to work towards in my life.

Do you have a favourite memory from creating ‘The Breeze Grew A Fire’?

There are a few. There was a time when I made this song on the album called “Hawk.” The song is dedicated to a really dear friend of mine who passed away unexpectedly in 2021. It was not easy to write and when I first wrote the song, it was sad, slow and reflective of the whole situation. I listened to it after I made it and I started thinking about my friend and the things that he liked. He was a very expressive and hilarious person who loved dancing and dance music. At that moment a light bulb went up and I felt like the song needed to be more of a dance song because I wanted to make something that he would love and not something he would think is corny. It was a really beautiful moment musically and personally. 

If there’s one thing you would like your fans or listeners to take away from ‘A Breeze Grew A Fire,’ what would it be? 

I hope it brings a sense of comfort and warmth. I also hope it tells a clear story of what matters to me. I just really hope it makes people feel better, that’s really it. I think it’s one of those albums where it’s a personal album for me and I think it’s meant for personal moments too. I hope it lives in people’s lives in comforting ways.

Listen to ‘A Breeze Grew A Fire’ here