Mereba: Q&A

Throughout Black History Month 2025, WFUV is focusing on artists — both emerging and established — whose music we admire, both on-air with FUV Live alums and online with Q&As. Also read about Kashus Culpepper and Spellling.

"Test my luck for brighter days," Mereba coolly observes in "Ever Needed," the second song on her gentle, sanguine second album, The Breeze Grew a Fire. "It's a vicious cycle." As the world navigates news-cycle landmines daily,  Mereba's tranquil songs, awash with a perceptive awareness of family, friends, spirituality and parenthood, are slants of salvation and normalcy that can get lost in today's tempest.

The Alabama-born, Pennsylvania-raised, Los Angeles-based Mereba's debut album, 2019's The Jungle Is the Only Way Out, heralded her emergence as a singer, rapper, guitarist and producer, as did her many collaborations with Rapsody, Kojey Radical, Spillage Village and notably, Vince Staples and 6lack on "Yo Love" from the Queen & Slim soundtrack. Although Mereba, full name Marian Azeb Mereba, released an EP in 2021 called Azeb, she took her time to dwell on her baby son and make the second album she desired.

The Breeze Grew a Fire is that assured return for this observant artist, crackling with dazzling strokes of psychedelia ("Wild Sky"), propulsive lullabies ("Heart of a Child"), and rapturous Afrobeat-splashed rap ("Hawk") on this 13-track reflection on life and love. As she puts it, she wants to make "those universal truths feel otherworldly in sound."

Mereba will tour North America this spring, and FUV caught up with her just prior to the album's Valentine's Day release via Secretly Canadian. Over email, we talked about the entwined themes on the album, her feelings about Black History Month, and what it means to have a mentor in Stevie Wonder:

The Breeze Grew a Fire follows six years after your debut album, The Jungle Is the Only Way Out, and four years after 2021's Azeb EP. In that stretch of time, through the pandemic, how did your music shape-shift from where you were in 2019?

So many things in my life changed in that window of time. I think the most significant shift was lyrical approach, and the kinds of things I wanted to write about. I became more and more called to the parts of my life I had never written about before, because I finally had time to sit and reflect on my journey and the relationships that lasted through each peak and valley. My focuses in 2019 were more on romantic relationships, critiquing the system, personal growth — but I pivoted to writing a lot more about family, spirituality, and friendships, because I realized those were the constants of my life.

What is most important to you now as a musician, songwriter, and producer?

As a producer, drums and percussion became so much more fundamental to my sound. I want to move more to my music.

Your single, "Phone Me," is a moving ode to friendship and sisterhood — what it means to have true friends who've always got your back. The video was co-directed by Luke Orlando but it seems a lot of your personal photographs and perhaps your friends are part of the clip? How did it all come about?

Yes! This video was so fun to make and very different than the more serious tone of most of my visuals. The stars are all very dear friends. Some are fellow artists I’ve come up with and remained close to over the years like India Shawn, 6lack, Joyce Wrice, and Arima Ederra. I went through all the photos I could access across phones, old computers, etc., and asked my friends to send me what they had too. They were so helpful to the process and so willing to tell the story. It became like a scrapbook of memories and a tribute to the people we’ve grown up to become, together.

There's a refrain in "Counterfeit," of "look up high, wild sky" and many of the tracks on the album also gaze skyward: "White Doves," "Hawk," "Wild Sky," "Meteorite," and "Starlight (My Baby)." What themes, as you were writing, felt important to you?

So, I actually didn’t intend on so many of the songs having titles that point to the sky; it’s like that part just spelled itself out for me while creating the work. But I can say that the sky, space, heaven, the afterlife — and the infinite possibilities associated with these things — have always inspired my writing. I like the way mundane truths in life often fit perfectly into nature’s metaphors. And I love making those universal truths feel otherworldly in sound. The theme of true platonic love was very important to me on this project, and I think the limitlessness of the sky and all that that encompasses felt akin to those kinds of limitless, unconditional love.

There are many artists, like Cleo Sol and Laura Marling, who've found that new parenthood was a catalyst in their writing, especially retrospectively musing on their own childhoods and familial ties. Was that true for you as you were writing these songs?

Absolutely. Mother by Cleo Sol was a perfect companion as a new mom; it came out right around when I had my son. I definitely relate to the way becoming a mom unearths all sorts of revelations about one’s own childhood and familial ties. That inspired so much of my writing process — it’s like my son’s presence put new lenses over my eyes. I could see myself differently, my inner child, all the people I ever got a chance to know and love from a fresh perspective of gratitude and understanding.

Years from now, when you talk about this album with your son, what do you hope he'll appreciate about it?

This is a beautiful question. It’s so sweet because he’s already so attached to this album [and] he knows every song through and through. So years from now, I hope it’s still a special collection of songs we can enjoy together and reminisce through. I hope when he hears some of the songs, by then he has his own rich memories with friends, family, loved ones, to associate them with. I also hope he can someday grasp the impact he’s had on me as a person, and the ways his presence in this world opened me up so much more as an artist and human.

Stevie Wonder has long been a mentor of yours — when did you first meet him? What is it about his perspective on music, empathy, and justice that feels especially important right now, in 2025?

His mentorship changed so much for me when I felt most alone and uncertain with music. I met him in 2016 and he took me under his wing, listened to my rough demos, and encouraged me to produce and write my own music despite naysayers suggesting otherwise. Having his support was the last push I needed to follow my own convictions and the messages I had been receiving from God. His music is timeless and infinitely important to humanity!

Is there one song of his that is especially resonant for you this month?

Given the times we’re living through, the rapid changes in climate, the president and his destructive and erratic "leadership," multiple genocides around the world, everything costing more than most can afford ... there are so many of his songs that are relevant but I’d say "Higher Ground." It acknowledges the struggles we’re facing while still pointing to resilience and the power of the people, which I will never give up on.

Has Black History Month, as a designation or celebration, ever had any meaning for you, whether in the past or presently? What does it mean to you in 2025?

It has always meant something to me, any chance to celebrate and acknowledge our history does. But I will say, I come from an extremely proud family. My mother’s side is African American, father’s side is Ethiopian. I was raised by teachers and historians, so Black History Month was cute at school, but I feel blessed to be a part of a big family that emphasized pride in our Blackness year round. I learned so much about our achievements and history especially from my big sister Stephanie, and my Auntie Margaret who is a legend of the people in Milwaukee. I do think, in 2025, it’s important to emphasize this month because there are so many opps gaining traction, trying to devalue and distort the progress we’ve made as a people. Also, as my queen Whitney Houston said perfectly, “We need a longer month,” because they tried it by giving us February.

- Mereba
February 2025