Singer-Songwriter Mars Baby Speaks About His Nomadic Upbringing And His Rise As a Musician
Birthed in Cape Town but made to be accustomed to travelling between the United States of America and South Africa, singer-songwriter Mars Baby was born Jesse Meintjies before having to saddle the back of a meandering life. Already a descendent of mixed lineage, acclimating to the nomadic condition of his life, which has exposed him to different environments and cultures, has been part and parcel of his journey since he was a child, the very thing which has shaped his approach in music.
Blessed to come from a mixed background – a father who is half-Afrikaaner and half-British and a mother who is Coloured – Mars Baby recollected being exposed to Cape Town Jazz and old school rock-type music with an acoustic inclination. Shaped by eclectic tastes, he talked about how his upbringing influenced his music and how growing up going back and forth Mzansi and North America also had an impact in his artistry.
“My South African heritage has played a huge role in my music. When I was in America, I learned a lot about blues and gospel since I sang in a choir. I also learned from a blues guy there how to play the guitar. I had come back to the country from the US when I was sixteen. I learnt a lot about my culture at a later stage in life and started incorporating more of that into my music. So, all those things came together to build my current style,” he said.
Mars Baby | SUPPLIED
Mars named his forthcoming album Handsome Luke & the Heartbreakers, already foreshadowed by the drop of his single “Forgiving You”. In Africa, names have always been viewed as more than identifying markers but prophecies which went ahead and laid out the foundations of the lives they belonged to. The rolling stone spoke about the quaint title of his imminent project, which he mentioned was inspired by early 2000s music such as pop punk material and guitar-based rock fused with the R&B he’s slowly becoming known more and more for.
“Handsome Luke, we could say, is a part of myself – an alter ego. It represents a part of me that I present to other people but also the one I want to hide. It’s basically a commentary of how when you are in the entertainment industry, everything is superficial. It’s like moving from one space to another very fast, emotionally and physically. It’s the sort of name you’d give to a carnival attraction, right? Because being in the industry makes you feel like a travelling performer of sorts, and it becomes difficult to make connections with people because of that, romantically or otherwise. And that’s where the heartbreak part of the name comes in,” he said.
Jesse released his single “Forgiving You”, which is a soul-searching and sober song which tackles themes such as reconciliation, growth, and family ties. Mars spoke about the album’s follow-up single to “Spotlight”.
“I started the song as I do with most of them, with my guitar. I wrote the majority of the song in my apartment speaking about myself, my journey with recovery as well as my addiction, and tying that into my journey of being a musician and how my family feels about that. The song is also about reflecting about everything that has gone wrong in my life and how it’s easy to focus on those kinds of things when you’re younger and then growing older and realising that things will always go wrong and that it’s easier to forgive the people around you for the things that went wrong when you know that they love you.
“After I wrote it, I went to studio to record it. It was an emotional session, and it was actually Father’s Day. So I was sort of channelling that feeling because it’s about my family. I then wrote the last bit in studio because it was Father’s Day and I was about to call my dad,” he said.
Listen to “Forgiving You”:
Besides the release of his upcoming project, the singer-songwriter hinted that a music video for “Forgiving You” was only weeks away from birth as were upcoming shows.
“We are working on a couple shows for next year and maybe for the latter parts of the year. I’m also gonna be dropping a music video for “Forgiving You” sometime in the next few weeks. I’m also very active on the socials doing promo videos and trying to take this character and turn it into something cool,” he said.
A signee of the STAYLOW stable, reputed for growing and pruning some of the country’s remarkable musical acts such as SAMA-winning stars Shane Eagle, Lordkez, and Priddy Ugly, Mars spoke about the rapport between himself and STAYLOW, touching on the importance of the relationships forged within which have helped him find his footing.
“STAYLOW has been amazing. I’m very close with everyone here, and it just feels like I’m family, and it always felt that way even when I was starting out in Cape Town. Back then I didn’t really have any following or any music out. At that time, when I was still starting out, I was still a producer for Lordkez until I grew into an artist in my own right. And everyone has been great and encouraging throughout the process. They’re very involved in my music, the visuals, the rollouts and all of that. So, it’s been really good with them and I think it will be that way for a really long time,” he said.
Mars Baby | SUPPLIED
Influenced by the likes of John Mayer, Kanye West, and Frank Ocean, Mars believed in not restricting himself when it came to learning something new, crediting up-and-coming acts with pushing the envelope concerning creativity.
“I think it’s important to listen to a lot of music and not necessarily what’s popular. I take a lot of inspiration from new artists who are pushing boundaries by taking notes of them in terms of the things they are doing and try to put that into what I’m doing in a way that will be authentic to me,” he said.
Mars expressed a full-circle desire to return to his father’s roots and do acoustic music while also looking at other genres to explore while with the gang at STAYLOW.
“I’d like to experiment with the acoustic side of music and the stripped-down sound. I have found that I really enjoy that kind of music during the making of my album. Another thing I’m enjoying right now is Afrobeats on a production level, so I’m sort of playing around with it just to see how I can delve into that arena while still honouring the existing culture surrounding that sound. I’m surrounded by a lot of multi-genre artists at STAYLOW, so I think I’ll have the chance to experiment with different types of R&B, different types of Afro, and different types of hip-hop. Mixing everything up in the moment has always been my thing and doing what feels right in the moment,” he said.