Album of the Year #5: Mereba - The Jungle Is The Only Way Out - HipHop | HipHop Channel

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Album of the Year #5: Mereba - The Jungle Is The Only Way Out - HipHop

Album of the Year #5: Mereba - The Jungle Is The Only Way Out - HipHop

Album of the Year #5: Mereba - The Jungle Is The Only Way Out

Posted: 06 Jan 2020 09:05 AM PST

Artist: Mereba

Album: The Jungle Is The Only Way Out

Listen:

Spotify

Apple Music

Background by /u/mehlibu

Marian Mereba, known mononymously by her last name, is a 29-year-old R&B artist out of Atlanta, known primarily for her membership in its Spillage Village collective. Those following the work of fellow members like JID and EarthGang might have caught her honeyed harmonies on tracks from albums like The Never Story and Strays with Rabies. By early 2018, alongside racking up Spillage Village features, she'd released two EPs, 2013's Room For Living and 2017's Kotton House Vol. 1. From these appearances, you could grant that she was a nice vocalist, but nothing she'd done had indicated serious potential as a solo act — her early material is mostly generic R&B, maybe pleasant for a playlist but without great songwriting or composition to back it up.

A few songs, however, hinted at the direction she'd take later. First, on 2017's "Radio Flyer", Mereba integrated her lush guitar playing behind those vocals to produce a track that, while still pretty simplistic compared to her future work, demonstrated the expansive, cinematic flair she would grow into during the next few years. Meanwhile, "September" was a saucier track where she ramped up her romantic confidence ("you must've forgot I'm a queen"), emboldened the guitars, and added some interesting synth touches as well.

Mereba had originally moved to Atlanta and enrolled at Spelman's College to find herself, wanting to participate and be absorbed in what she saw as the center of black culture in America. After joining Spillage Village in 2014 and steadily putting out buzz-worthy music, this work finally paid off with her 2018 signing to Interscope, placing her alongside her Spillage Village collaborators on the label. The two singles she released last year after being signed marked a left turn from her previous work: "Planet U", an ode to a unique lover, sounds huge and complex, with enveloping bass and synths, layered folk harmonies, and extended rap passages, while "Black Truck" turns a digital beat from 9th Wonder(!) into a reflection on the long road she's taken to follow her dreams.

Both tracks ended up on The Jungle is the Only Way Out this past February as part of Mereba's commercial debut. This album is naturally her biggest effort yet, drawing on spoken word, hip hop, folk, blues, and more, as well as her family, her Ethiopian heritage, and choice features from crewmates JID and 6LACK. Since then, she's made major appearances on the chart-topping Revenge of the Dreamers III compilation album, a recent Tiny Desk performance, and the soundtrack to acclaimed drama Queen and Slim, showing that her star will only keep rising from here on out.

Review by /u/mehlibu

I'll be honest: whenever I hear about a new artist who 'seamlessly blends genres', is 'boundary-pushing' or 'defies labels', I kind of roll my eyes a little, because in my experience, that usually means they make generic pop music with weird chords. (Read some Spotify bios and see what I mean — it's an epidemic.) These days, I rarely see such fusions of disparate genres that don't feel forced or overwrought, which makes it all the more admirable that The Jungle Is The Only Way Out is so mature and thorough in its sound and style.

If you ever get the chance to see Mereba live, she'll put on an impressive show, singing, rapping and playing guitar all while maintaining the conversational stage-to-audience intimacy that's prized by artists in her lane. This album pulls off the same balancing act. The Jungle Is The Only Way Out begins with "more", one of three spoken-word/poetry interludes on the project, where Mereba's hushed harmonies leave space for some useful affirmations ("clean the mess more \ bless my set more"). Next, "Kinfolk" introduces us to the style that makes Mereba special: it's a gorgeous, anthemic R&B cut about Mereba finding peace, liberation and "hidden treasures" in the family she builds around her, but it's also a showcase for her dramatic guitar work, propelled on the chorus by a badass blues riff that sounds straight out of a car commercial, but much more captivating.

Performing the poet, the neo-soul vocalist, the folksy singer-songwriter, the conscious rapper, and everything else in between might come across as corny or lack cohesiveness in a different musician's hands. Mereba, though, feels like a complete artist who deals in her own inspirations and themes. The Jungle Is The Only Way Out, largely produced by Mereba herself, keeps an earthy, inky atmosphere that conjures up vast landscapes in nature, with distant synth touches rippling behind her lush vocals and guitar. Some of her evocative harmonies on this album almost remind me of chamber-folk acts like Fleet Foxes; as someone who prefers a lot of his R&B gritty, groovy and subterranean, I can't say I was always satisfied with The Jungle Is The Only Way Out's clean style and mixing, but the blend of sounds here is lush and effective. On the album's extended version of "Black Truck", 9th Wonder's propulsive boom-bap drums and repetitive keyboard line make for one of the album's most vivid beats, underpinning a story of struggling towards success that feels universal once Mereba's harmonies hit their gorgeous high notes ("Stay sick cause I follow my gut \ They say I was pushing my luck \ Imma push me a matte, all black truck").

A lot of Mereba's songwriting cleanly captures ambitious concepts that I rarely hear handled similarly in R&B and neo-soul. "Heatwave", featuring 6LACK, treats cycles of police violence like primal forces of nature: "long summer, it's gon' be a heatwave [...] you'd better run." The idea is an old one (think Chance the Rapper on "Paranoia", or any street rapper going for something abstract). But Mereba's singular voice imbues the theme with new significance, especially when paired with one of the album's many artfully-shot companion videos. Meanwhile, with its uplifting call-and-response structure, the interlude "Get Free" almost sounds like a modern take on a spiritual or a gospel song, its pining for liberation driven by massive layers of vocals and a crescendo of synths and strings. Regardless of what genres they comprise, I look at these tracks like 2019 versions of authentic folk songs. They're grounded in today's sounds and issues, but timeless in how they approach them.

There are other tracks on The Jungle Is The Only Way Out I haven't mentioned — the more typical cutting-off-a-toxic-relationship ballad "Highway 10", or "My One", a song about Mereba finding solace in her lover with a grating hook — but the album's strongest songs are its final four. "Planet U" stands as Mereba's most structurally-interesting song, one where she appreciates her man's unique qualities by beginning with an eye-catching rap verse and building over booming bass to an outro with some of her most cathartic singing yet. The theme here — that Mereba's lover is so one-of-a-kind, he must be from his own planet — is fun and well-executed, and the witty lyrics expand on that conceit ("maybe the moon was your womb and Spock was your doc \ your pops a vacuum filled up with the dust of trillions of stars \ that dim next to you") in an impressively rapid-fire, JID-esque flow and cadence. "Stay Tru", which Mereba performed on COLORS last year, offers a tried-and-true plea for fidelity with a beautiful, playful chorus that pulls at your heartstrings ("donʼt play me like a fiddle \ Keep another love with me up in the middle"). In general, the hooks on this album are incredible, and anchor the loose, interlude-filled tracklist really well.

Mereba has the makings of an amazing songwriter — her pained R&B relationship ballads captivate you and sketch her out as a woman with a unique perspective, while her forays into other styles work wonders just as well. The final two tracks exemplify these different modes as perhaps the best songs she's ever written, and some of the best songs of the year overall. "Sandstorm", a sophisticated duet with JID, has the highest streaming numbers of any song on The Jungle Is The Only Way Out, and it's easy to see why; when they harmonize as star-crossed lovers over those jet-black snatches of piano, they make pure ear candy. In keeping with the naturalistic imagery of the album, the "sandstorm" here is the two lovers' toxic relationship — as much as they try to reconcile, they're too destructive to be together. "Sandstorm" is one of the most entrancing love songs I've heard this year, but "Souvenir" is something else entirely, a luminous lullaby of a folk song that recounts an LSD trip Mereba had shortly before writing it. Its cryptic references to different colors defy interpretation; she crafts pearls like "grey is the color I wear when it's cold \ I don't mind shaking, it keeps me awake". But as her guitar and voice softly guide you into her world, you feel, as with the best songs on The Jungle Is The Only Way Out, like she's tapped into something deeper.

Favorite Lyrics by /u/mehlibu

As for the Devil, show it. No ruler can size you

No ruler should rule you, but the one that never binds you

Realize too, all that will try you is designed to unwind you, define you

but you do get to decide if this tide will capsize you.

The devil's been lied to.

The devil could die, too.

"dodging the devil"

A gun goes off and I'm burning up the track

Gimme my space, swear you so intergalac-

-tic, like Bic, you be turnin' me to wax

Bitches ain't shit, still throwing you the cat

"Planet U"

Red is the color I wear when it's late

And my door's knocked on 'round 8

Grey is the color I wear when it's cold

I don't mind shaking, it keeps me awake

"Souvenir"

But then I remember that you got a temper, and I got no filter

So it's like a sandstorm, when we get to blows

Can we please take it easy?

Let's just act like adults

JID and Mereba on "Sandstorm"

Discussion Questions by u/mehlibu

  • Had you heard of Mereba before this album? If so, how does it compare to her early work?

  • How does this album stack up against the broader alternative R&B scene? Against the rest of Spillage Village?

  • Does The Jungle Is the Only Way Out actually sound as interesting as I say it does, or is it just a bland folk-soul hybrid?

  • What do you think of the spoken-word passages on the album?

  • A common opinion I've heard is that while the last few tracks are well-written songs, the rest are mostly forgettable. Do you agree?

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Daily Discussion Thread 01/06/2020

Posted: 06 Jan 2020 02:04 PM PST

Welcome to the /r/hiphopheads daily discussion thread!

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IG Story, also posted on Future's IG story.

Original Thread

Snippet

According to /u/16ringsupinmycocina, it's a single for the Prince Family compilation album and the guy who posted that snippet said he heard 3 songs off that project and he's pretty reliable since he's really affiliated with J Prince

submitted by /u/HHHRobot
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submitted by /u/throw2045
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