The colours! The looks! The genres! The voice! The narrative! This Valentine’s Day Desire Marea has returned to us with the ultimate story of love wrapped up in the most gorgeous video for his epic new single, ‘Be Free‘.

The track is a total journey, seeing Desire meld genres from tense percussive jazz to heady electric rock and a gospel-esque swell of horns and synth, representative of the lovers’ stubbornness and yearning to be free.

Desire explains: “One of my heroes, Marlon Riggs, said “Black men loving black men is THE revolutionary act”. Be Free is a love story about two black men loving each other through the crisis of masculinity. It’s set in South Africa’s hypermasculine world of taxi gangs, one of the many places where gay men exist often under a layer of oppression that’s in addition to the homophobic violence of the world at large. It was important for me to tell this story because love, even under such conditions, is always a story worth telling. And freedom is always something worth fighting for. I am grateful to the team and to Director Imraan Christian for the passion, care and nuance he gave to this story.”

‘Be Free’ is taken from Desire’s upcoming second album, On The Romance Of Being, out 7th April via Mute Records – available to pre-order now. The new body of work was recorded live with an ensemble of thirteen musicians, many songs being first take: “My ancestors gave me an instruction to record this with a live band. The reasoning? It was a way to ensure that the music carried the soul. We were all united in the most intimate parts of our consciousness. The music made us one.”