Mereba

A Los Angeles-based singer, songwriter, and producer who also raps and plays guitar, Marian Mereba, known simply as Mereba, got her start with a series of folk-soul hybrid releases including Room for Living EP (2013), and has since recorded for Interscope. Her full-length major-label debut was made with The Jungle Is the Only Way Out (2019).

Marian Mereba grew up in Philadelphia, where she began writing and singing at a young age and eventually started playing piano and guitar. During her early teens, she moved to Greensboro, North Carolina, and after high school headed farther south to Atlanta, where she attended and graduated from Spelman College. She also spent the better part of a year in her father's native Ethiopia.

Mereba made her proper debut in 2013 with the self-released EP Room for Living, an alternately spacy and rustic set accompanied by her own guitar playing. A short-term affiliation with the independent Red Kotton label resulted in the 2014 singles "September" and "Radio Flyer," both of which reappeared three years later on Kotton House, Vol. 1, an EP that also contained a Doug E. Fresh collaboration entitled "Living on a Dream." In 2018, Mereba released her first singles for major-label Interscope. A 9th Wonder collaboration titled "Black Truck" marked her debut that February and was followed seven months later by "Planet U," which she worked on with Ayo Olatunji and Sam Hoffman. Both tracks were included on The Jungle Is the Only Way Out, which arrived in February 2019 with Hoffman as Mereba's primary songwriting and production partner. The LP also featured appearances from 6LACK and JID. ~ Andy Kellman, Rovi