Soulful, elegant and rather gorgeous; that would be a few choice words to sum up the singer-songwriter Marian Mareeba. Born in Atlanta, Georgia (to an Ethiopian father and a South American mother) the twenty four year old resists any genre restrictions preferring to bring her melodious vocals to a sound that skips between folk, pop and hip-hop all under pinned by excellent song writing.
After dropping her beautiful project Room For Living Marian has seen her popularity grow with a live performances at SXSW where she positively smashed it certainly a highlight.
With an album due for release on Kotton Records for late 2014 her current project the Red Flyer LP comes complete with engaging numbers like Going To London and adds further foundation to the idea that Marian just maybe a name to keep an eye on for 2014.
‘I have always loved music’
I have always loved music and I have always sung. Since I was young even at elementary school I would write songs on the side of my paper and I would get in trouble with the teachers for doing this. At first my mother did not know what to do with me. They thought I was just this easily distractible kid but then she asked me to sing one of my songs and she were surprised because they were full of bridges, hooks and choruses and from there she began to support all of my endeavours. My family got me a piano and I taught myself how to play and then I was bought a very cheap guitar for Christmas and me and my guitar became really good friends.
‘I think if I am neo-soul then I am also other things’
Genres can be very limiting and I think that now we are here in 2014 the music I listen to is very genre bending. Maybe it is due to the exposure of music we have but it is weird mash-ups but if I was to drop a genre I would be where soul, folk and hip-hop meet.
Give us a sixteen Marian!
The bars came when I got to Atlanta. I was going around seeing other indie acts some good a lot really bad. I thought well I write so why don’t I try and do this. I am very minimalist in song writing so rap has allowed me to go in a bit more. The first song was a track about a guy who had an illegal trade! I wrote a rap basically saying I will hold it down for you. I dropped the rap for a few friends and they were like ‘this is dope’.
Andre 3000.
Andre is like one of my favourite rappers of all. On International Player’s Club Andre’s rap is about settling down with this woman and the other women are warning him of the type of woman he should not settle with. The verse has a nice innocence about it but his word play is just so sick.
Red Wagon?!
My next project is the Radio Flyer LP. I got the inspiration from these red wagons that kids ride in the US. They used to be huge but they have waned in popularity but when I was a kid your parents would pull you around but when you got older you could actually steer them. I would use the wagon as an escape to get away from my brother beating me or whatever and so I look at the radio flyer as a kind of escape and a symbol of youth.
MARIAN MAREBA//TWITTER//FACEBOOK
