PHFAT, enfant terrible of South African electronic rap and stalwart of the local industry, has emerged from a pandemic-induced hiatus to release “Whatever You Like”, the latest in a set of anthological tracks about love and relationships. The song is available on October 9, 2020, with pre-share on Apple and Spotify streaming platforms.

The track also marks a collaborative first between PHFAT and friend and director Paul Ward (a commercial director whose clients include Puma and Sanlam). Ward conceptualized and directed the song’s music video, which also comes out on the same date.

Looming, hopeful and darkly serenading, “Whatever You Like” is a rumination on the totality of falling in love, and its oscillations between bliss and apprehension, or as the artist notes, that feeling of “oh dear, this might be inconvenient at some point.”

PHFAT (real name Mike Zietsman), reflects on the concept behind the track: “At this stage of my life, I’ve found that love lands with a more complex set of emotions than some of the idealization that characterised love in my early twenties. Love also arrives with a set of responsibilities, with sacrifice and compromise, with the possibility of devastating rejection and pain. Falling in love responsibly really does take a certain type of courage, because the stakes are higher. I think the content and tone of this track manage to capture a lot of that, and I’m proud of that.”

Of the music video, which comes to life under the stewardship of 21-year-old producer Hana Jayne Sho, Ward says: “With this film, I wanted to take the viewer on an abstract journey through the rollercoaster of emotions of love. The dark, beautiful honest reality of love. I didn’t want to tell the viewer how to feel, to leave it open for interpretation. Everybody has their own personal emotions that resonate around love, and with this highly-visual film, we didn’t want the viewer to think. We wanted them to feel.”