Desire Marea

A multidisciplinary South African artist, Desire Marea produces tense, challenging material rooted in post-industrial, art rock, and club traditions while confronting loneliness, trauma, displacement, and sexuality. As one half of the performance art duo FAKA, he issued his first solo album, Desire, in 2020; the follow-up, On the Romance of Being, arrived in 2023 as a full-band effort shaped by jazz and post-punk.

Born Buyani Duma, he completed studies in Performing Arts at Johannesburg’s National School of the Arts and earned a bachelor’s degree in Visual Communication from Vega School. After exploring acting, he took a position at a leading South African advertising agency. In 2015 he formed the queer performance art duo FAKA with Thato Ramaisa, known as Fela Gucci. That same year the pair appeared on NON Worldwide Compilation, Vol. 1; their 2016 EP Bottoms Revenge followed on the same label, and Marea also contributed to Angel-Ho’s Emancipation EP. FAKA’s second release, the 2017 EP Amaqhawe, adopted a more club-oriented approach informed by South Africa’s gqom scene. The duo played festivals such as MELT!, Roskilde, and Sonar, received commissions for several prominent fashion presentations, and appeared on Africa Express’ 2019 album Egoli.

Marea issued his debut solo album Desire digitally through Izimakade Records in 2020. Featuring nearly operatic vocals in English and Zulu, the record moved between sophisticated art pop and noisy IDM. Word-of-mouth acclaim led Mute to handle its physical edition in 2021. After spending two years training as a Sangoma, a traditional Nguni spiritual healer, he assembled a live band that included noted jazz musicians Sibusiso Mashiloane and Sbu Zondi. The resulting album, On the Romance of Being, was released in 2023; its lyrics address spiritual, romantic, and sexual concerns.