When you listen to Mereba’s music, you get the sense that, for her, art and life are inseparable – metaphors blurring into reality and back again. Her upcoming album, The Breeze Grew a Fire, chronicles the personal evolutions that took place following her AZEB EP in 2021, over the verdant R&B- and jazz-adjacent sonics that called her back.

“The songs touch on warmth, friendships, sweet memories… to me, all those things felt how a breeze feels,” Mereba says of how the album’s title came to her. “For a while, I had been feeling like a spark that always burned inside of me was dimming – probably a combination of growing up, becoming jaded and sleepiness from all the mommying. I was yearning for more simplicity and community, and ‘breezes grow fires’ kept circling back to me as an idea.” And that was all before the horrific wildfires hit her current city of residence, LA. Art and life are inseparable indeed.

Whether this is a coincidence, or indicative of the almost mystical properties that true art tends to take on, what is certain is that The Breeze Grew a Fire contains the kind of virtuosity that does not come overnight. It’s the product of her early years listening to the protest anthems of Bob Dylan, Stevie Wonder and Nina Simone, collaborations with hip-hop legends like Doug E Fresh and J Cole’s Dreamville series, and time spent in her paternal homeland of Ethiopia.

“Living there at 18 changed the shape of my vision, it reminded me to always reach out my hands to home through my artistry,” Mereba reminisces of her time in Addis Ababa. “To me, it’s impossible not to fall in love with the musical approaches of our great jazz musicians like Mulatu Astatke, Hailu Mergia and Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou. Our ancient instruments, the krar and masinqo, are played by the amazing Kibrom Birhane throughout this album. It was the perfect thread and an honor to bring to fruition.”

Through this career runs a dichotomy that underpins all of Mereba’s releases – having one foot in the city and one foot in the greenery that lies beyond. “The city inspired so many of my personal classics – coming-of-age memories backdropped by city nights,” says Mereba. “But I do think the sonics still take us somewhere green throughout it, like those parts of earth where the forest leads straight onto sand on a beach.”

In many ways, it’s these parallel threads that really set The Breeze Grew a Fire apart. There’s hints of folk storytelling on poetic interlude “Breeze Grew Fire”, soulful somnambulance on “Starlight (My Baby)”, and hip hop in the plodding kicks that march through it all. “[This project] was basically the soundtrack to a long walk back home to myself,” Mereba sums up. “I spent so much time trying to make something of myself, hyper-focused, that I accidentally overlooked the relationships that pushed me to this place.” That journey was the breeze, and this project is definitely fire.

Below, Mereba walks us through the real-life moments behind her most heartfelt releases.

“GO TO LONDON”

Mereba: This will always be one of the most special songs of my discography to me. It was the first single I ever released, in 2013, off of my first EP called Room for Living. It made some waves through the blog scene and kind of started my journey as an artist. I was going through a breakup with my boyfriend that I was with throughout college, and I was so sad and reflective. I just remember I couldn’t shake the melancholy and then one day this song came to me. I knew we weren’t meant to do life together for many reasons, so the lyrics encourage him to live out his dreams in life as I will mine, and to hold the memories of us together fondly.

“BLACK TRUCK”

Mereba: This song brought my spirit back to life! Truly. I wrote it after four years of being trapped in a stalled record deal with a scammy company. I had been so broke and lost for those years, sinking into the city of LA, living with five people in a downtown loft, working many odd jobs, car repossessed, toxic relationship… I was down bad. I got the opportunity to go down to North Carolina, which is where I lived in my teen years, to work with the legendary producer 9th Wonder for the first time. On the first day, within the first probably 30 minutes, we made “Black Truck”. It just felt like it poured out of both of us from such a sacred and spiritual place. Also, the trip to NC allowed me to take a train back to my hometown of Greensboro and spend time with my father who had been battling illness for some time. It turned out to be the last time I’d get to see him in person. He was so adamant about me continuing my journey in LA until I made something of myself.  It still makes me emotional to listen to it because of how it all unfolded.

“NEWS COME”

Mereba: I started out as a folk protest singer-songwriter. I looked up to Bob Dylan and Stevie Wonder and Nina Simone because of the way so much of their work was centered around care for the people and a sense of political urgency. Although my sound has opened up over the years, I always feel at home in a protest song. I wrote “News Come” in July 2020. It was inspired by the times we were living through, the chaos and then the unity we found as a result. For a moment there, it felt like the masses agreed on the need for some kind of revolutionary shift in the world, and it felt promising. I was hoping that instead of waiting on the worst tragedy, the right headline, the most evil villain to move us towards revolution, it’d show up in our everyday lives and the way we care for our communities. I have so much hope for the future despite how bleak it really does look because I believe in the people. I’ve always been that way I guess, naive as it may be.

“COUNTERFEIT”

Mereba: It makes me sad seeing a truly special person lose their authenticity. Few things are lamer to witness. Now more than ever I think it feels hard not to get sucked up into the zeitgeist and lose that raw sense of realness placed inside each of us, uniquely. This song was inspired by the years I’ve been in the music scene and seen people lose the light in their eyes. It also has a bit of my perspective as a mother infused into it because it does feel motherly in message too. I know it’s something my mom would say to me and I’d say to my baby as he gets older too. You’re an original, a counterfeit just wouldn’t quite hit the same.

“SANCTUARY”

Mereba: I made this song when I was learning more about meditation and the power of ‘Om.’ It started out as just the chants you hear at the beginning and end of the song, and my guitar. It was meditation music before being a full song. The lyrics started to fill themselves in the more I began to heal my grief and trauma through meditating. “Sanctuary” is so special to me, it touches on the safe spaces I’ve created inside of myself to protect me from the horrors of the outside world. It tells a few stories about what led me to creating this sanctuary inside. I like to feel at home when I close my eyes, and I believe this song serves as a pathway back home to oneself.

Mereba‘s third LP, The Breeze Grew a Fire, is out on February 14, including “Sanctuary” above.