Mereba

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Photographer: Breyona Holt Creative Director: Paco Lampecinado Styling: Beoncia Dunn for Zerina Akers Studio Make-up: Melanesia Hunter Hair: Taylor Hawkins Interview: Jurdan Bryant

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Jurdan: How has this time away helped cultivate your sounds/thoughts for the future?

Mereba: I feel a really concentrated sense of ‘growing up’ right now.. it’s like an all day, everyday kinda thing. Been reading more, taking time to think and reflect more, being still and stretching my brain and my beliefs more than before. I guess I’ve always been a rather ‘free thinker’.. some might say more radical in thought, and so are my loved ones around me. But to be real, I think these times have called upon everyone to stretch wider. So it’s made me think about who I am and what I can grow into. I’m gonna tell my story as it evolves... I’m growing more comfy inside of myself and getting better at being human. My perspective is gonna be different than before because I’m not the same anymore.

Jurdan: I agree wholeheartedly, there is always room for improvement, and “Room For Living”. There’s never been a time like this in history, so I feel every step forward has to be more intentional than the last. The knowledge is out there, it is up to us how we choose to receive and digest, and distribute it. With that being said... Do you think social media has helped or hurt more during this pandemic?

Mereba: For me personally, it’s been kind of two-sided. Towards the beginning of the pandemic, I started a series that helped me use social media for what it could be in an ideal world. The series is called JungleJournals, and the premise is creatives around the world sharing their art with one another in the JungleJournals space. I set up a landing page on my website where the art can be shared, and 12 I would pick a few submissions each week and interview their creators on my IG Live. It was a simple way for people to commune & contribute creative energy to the collective when we all need inspiration most. I took a pause from that series in order to finish two music projects, but I’m going to bring it back later in the year. It was therapeutic because I met so many passionate people with unique perspectives, using their own imaginations to pass the time and stay hopeful. Social media really can be powerful if that’s the energy you put into it. It has also helped mobilize a whole new generation of people around the topic of destroying inequality in our country and forming a new vision. That was a sight for my eyes to see. Sheer pride and wonder spread through me watching the way important things were really at the forefront of the conversation, cuz I’m always trying to take it there! It’s powerful. Unfortunately, with great power comes great responsibility.. and I’m not sure that people fully understand that part yet. There is so much energy wasted in negative, unproductive conversations on social media. It can feel like an echo chamber when there’s no tangible action being taken along with the hot takes. It sometimes feels like a race to have the first or last word, not a space to genuinely cultivate growth and understanding. So I go back and forth about it and spend most of my days off of it at this point.

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Jurdan: What can you tell us about the two music projects you’ve been working on?Mereba: I’m finishing up two projects for this year. The first is the Spillage Village album, we’re coming back with our first project together in a few years after focusing on our solo stuff. We had gotten together at a studio house in Atlanta and worked on the project back in March.. but then the country shut down and I had to go back to my place in LA last minute. It was the best possible sendoff though. I think working with my brothers will always feel organic and just super fun because of the level of comfort and sonic fluidity we’ve all cultivated between us.

The other project is my next solo one, which is an EP coming soon. It’s inspired by the truths that have moved more to the forefront of the conversation this year. I wrote a song called “News Come, News Go,” one day at home, and that pulled me out of the fog that this year had me in. My background as a songwriter started with writing folk songs on my guitar when I was in high school.. sitting on my bedroom floor, dreaming of a new world, and writing about it. The songs were all about social justice and politics, freedom and revolution. I still write a lot about seeking freedom. But as I got more into the music business, I stopped focusing on those themes as much, unfortunately. But this year was a giant reminder for me, that there is a reason why those messages were put inside of me from a young age, and now the world really needs me to refine them and release them. Everything is for a reason. We’re gonna need music to revolution to.

Jurdan: What album would you choose to be the soundtrack of what’s going on right now?Mereba: Hmmm. Innervisions by Stevie Wonder or New Amerykah Part One (4th World War) by Erykah Badu. Both of those albums inspired me a lot. They’re uplifting.. but also they both have heavy undertones about the states of the world they were living in. There are uncomfortable truths woven into the beautiful sounds. I believe in the power of spirituality and reaching out for things bigger than earth for guidance. I think certain moments in time show the importance of that even more than others. Right now people are fearful and I understand why. But albums like those just help to heal and reconnect us with our power in the midst of all the confusion. They expose the truth through a spiritual lens.

Jurdan: Interesting that you mentioned Innervisions By Stevie Wonder. (One of my favorites) That was the first album that I remember hearing that let me know that it was pertinent to communicate your thoughts in such a way that will transcend generations. It made me ask questions, it made me want to find answers. That’s important.

Mereba: Yes, I think the most profound albums are the ones that turn the gaze back inside of the listener. That one just made me look deeper inside of myself, like damn... well what are my innervisions? What do I see for the world when I close my eyes?

Because once you ask yourself that question, you’ve started the journey of living your life with an actual purpose. You can start walking towards that internal vision by representing it in the way you live your life. I’m glad my Mom showed me that album when I was young, it connected me to the divinity of music beyond it just sounding fire.

Jurdan: What are your innervisions?Mereba: There’s a simplicity to my innervisions. It seems simple to me, at least. I imagine everyone being more in tune with the human experience, man. Like, having our own bit of land. Growing things for ourselves and for our communities. Healthcare is for the people, schools are for the people, and there is quality and care and truth in both of those spaces. There is no reason why illness should come with a price tag. Or why people’s quality of life makes them sick with preventable illnesses. There is also no reason why lies are taught as fact in public schools, or that very few skills that prepare a person for the world are taught there. There are so many things that just literally do not make sense, and we know it.

We know that things are this way because it keeps a very, very small few in power. This is a human life that we each inherited at birth, and we gotta pay for every aspect of it. It’s weird. It’s worth using all our power to change it. So anyway, in my innervisions, the vibration is elevated overall. Music feels better, family is stronger, communal support is a given, children are safe, nature is thriving, sunsets and sunrises, ganja, lovemaking, drink, celebrations for being alive, it’s green and lovely. In my innervisions, life isn’t based around working and escaping to our vices to cope. Life is in the living.

Jurdan: Have you ever heard an album that taught you more about yourself?

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Mereba: The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill taught me so much about my future self that it’s wild to even think about! Her honesty led to a deeper self-understanding for so many little black girls who heard it. It just sounded true. Then you grow up and realize, yeah... those were facts. Big facts. Also.. The Jungle is the Only Way Out.. it taught me what I was capable of when I really, truly, like for real for real believed in myself. It taught me how to get what was inside of me, out.

Jurdan: 1000%, when I first heard the song “The miseducation of Lauryn Hill” it pushed me to define my self, for myself. A lot of unlearning to do still, but here we are growing in real time.

Mereba: Unlearning! Yes. So much of that. I’ve gotten to a certain place in life where my peace of mind seems to be about subtraction more than additional. Shedding expectations of myself that kept me bound to a reality of disappointment.

Completely rejecting standards made by the status quo whether that’s beauty standards, thought standards, career standards... real ‘getting free’ shit, you know. It’s a daily practice. And I have my tribe and my musical ancestors living and gone to guide me on my way.

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Special thanks to designers: Pyer Moss, Orange Culture, Kimberly Goldson, Mother Golden, Zola’s, Height & Light

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