The Breeze Grew A Fire

Southern-bred, alternative R&B singer-songwriter Mereba artistically embodies self-understanding on The Breeze Grew a Fire, her grandest work and first release on Secretly Canadian. To hone in on this latest album, it was necessary for Mereba to reconnect with her whole many-sided self, from her inner child to her inseparable relationships. While she peacefully transmutes her beginnings on the 13-track LP, Mereba looks upon her closest kinships and friendships with a keen understanding of their steadying, inspirational force. Surrounded by the gentle Breeze of these relationships and recollections, Mereba is empowered as both an artist  and mother, while also being reminded to nurture her childlike wonder.

As a singer, rapper, songwriter and producer, Mereba gracefully shines on the follow-up to her bounteous 2019 debut, The Jungle Is the Only Way Out. In escaping the Jungle, Mereba faced the paradigm shift of birthing a son in 2021 and getting accustomed to a rapidly changing  self-outlook. Mereba’s creative output has always relied on her innermost reflections and ideas on whatever was happening around her; but in motherhood, the singer’s perspective widened while her inspiration became more focused, and more individually powerful.

Although Mereba is a true double Earth sign–Virgo and Virgo rising–the development of Breeze was anchored by experiences and memories from Atlanta to L.A, Addis Ababa to Greensboro, an intention that speaks to the album’s fluid nature. Breeze brought Mereba back to the intimacy of self-recording, and to an organic and personal foundation. She tapped her longtime production collaborator Sam Hoffman to co-assemble the album’s rich production, which parallels its folk-like warmth.

“I learned guitar from a folk guitar teacher as a young teen in North Carolina,” Mereba explains, “and that really shaped how I write songs to this day: focusing on simple stories of everyday life, many metaphors connected to nature, melancholic tinges, critique of the system/government, a rebellious/raw sort of attitude and vocal. Lots of my melodies have roots in folk/country music even as the sound has evolved otherwise.”

Mereba first came up through the hyperactive underground music scene in Atlanta, which, as an indie musician, heavily influenced her sound and journey. She honed her skills as a performer and rapper playing every kind of show: folk shows, reggae shows, rap shows, R&B shows. Mereba also linked with Spillage Village, the rap collective she is still a part of with JID, Earthgang, 6lack, and others. In 2013 she self-released her first project, the Room for Living EP, before packing up her car one day in 2015 and heading for LA in search of a change in life. Here, Mereba locked into teaching herself Ableton, living with four artists of varying disciplines, and stealing any free time she could to build a cohesive, singular sound.

Her debut studio album The Jungle is the Only Way Out was a breakthrough by virtually any measure; Mereba found a hefty, devoted fanbase, a dizzying number of doors open to her, and a connection to the icon Stevie Wonder, who mentored Mereba around the same time. “We hit it off in a very pure way,” says Mereba, “he was one of the early supporters of me serving as my own producer with my music, as it mirrored him taking control of his own sound in the late 60s/early 70s. His support and guidance helped me finish the album that changed things for me as an artist.” Mereba also found her music soundtracking film and TV like Creed, Insecure, and Queen & Slim, all of which reaffirmed Mereba’s ascendant place in culture.

On The Breeze Grew A Fire, Mereba rediscovers space for her truest self and vows to remain authentic. Breeze opener “Counterfeit” begins with a soda shop jukebox-reminiscent melody, the song rhythmically whisks into an essential message of not losing oneself. The lyrics were first inspired by her observations of people around her, yet as the song grew in form, it slowly became an anthem aimed back at herself, too. The chorus’s production remains rhythmic, albeit a light experimental warble, while Mereba’s heartfelt vocals reach through the song.

Affirmations weave the textile of Breeze, like the drum-pulsating “Ever Needed,” which Mereba calls a “loyalty anthem” for her loved ones. “When they all forgot about me /Yeah, you pulled me out of that sea /And you made it easy to be alive /I’ll be there for you, I will be, I will be,” Mereba yearns on the dedication. Within the song’s gentle seams, the nuances of Mereba’s contemplative stories are often woven into verse lyrics, where here she also recalls heavier days of struggling through heartaches, regrets, and “rat races” together.

A moment of stillness arrives on the album’s titular track, “breeze grew fire,” an acoustic spoken word piece that sees self-reclamation and processing vulnerabilities exposed in the aftermath of childhood trauma and failed connections. As relief, Mereba gently tends to these wounds and relaxes into the breeze, treating herself with kindness and giving grace to “A calm reminder of who I was before the weight.”

With this theme of unburdening, Mereba relieves the emotions of those around her, whether it’s her own son, whom she lovingly adores and clearly instructs on the tender, dusk-appropriate lullaby “Starlight,” or a late friend who she fondly remembers through hazy club memories, wishing them well on the celestial journey through “infinite space-time” on “Hawk.”

Ancestral presence looms close to the album’s core, as heard between the thrumming guitar, soaring vocalizations and nudge towards courage on “Spirit Guiding,” where Mereba’s resonant tone paces towards divine ascension. Similarly, Mereba would sojourn to her paternal homeland of Ethiopia during the creation of album’s penultimate song, “Heart of a Child,” where a stringed instrument from the Abyssinia nestles against the song’s contemplative lines and playful spirit.

While nowhere near the end of her musical trek, The Breeze Grew a Fire is a loving, inspiring return to origin, one where Mereba frees a painful past, eases into future possibilities, and goes with life’s flow.