‘Valentine’s baby’ Christopher Martin loves love songs

It is a fact that Christopher Martin and love songs go hand in hand, whether he's belting out the mega hit Cheater's Prayer, or sincerely declaring his undying love on his latest release, Don't Have to Ask, which has a February 14 release date.

Martin believes that one of the reasons for this passion is that he is born on Valentine's Day, and this newest song is his birthday gift to lovers.

"I love to tell people that I am a lover from birth because I was born on the love day. I feel like that is one of the reasons why I feel so connected to love music. I grew up listening to love songs ... Otis Redding, Kenny Rogers, Sam Cooke, Al Green. So definitely, there could be no other day that for me to be born ... it was ordained," Martin told THE WEEKEND STAR.

Martin shared that he writes love songs from a mixture of both universal storylines and personal experience. He explained that Cheater's Prayer, for example, was just an idea that came to him while he was in the shower, and then it took a turn that set it apart from just another love song. Valentine's is perhaps not the best season to talk about that prayer, but the song has become such a favourite, that it's highly likely that it will receive major play throughout the weekend.

"I know what it is to be in love," Martin said, "as well as you can see people who are in love ... or who are believed to be in love ... and you can take inspiration from that. With Cheater's Prayer, which is definitely a very, very big song, it actually started out as a regular love song, ' Oh, Lord, don't let me cheat on my girlfriend, because I love my girlfriend, and she's so good to me ...'"

However, it took a turn when he said " Lord, if you can't stop me from cheating, don't let me get caught."

"That's what gave life to the verses and to the whole concept of infidelity. And if you can't help yourself, you ask the Almighty to intervene. But there was no target audience, actually. It's not like, I said I want to go for the cheating demographic. It was just a song and it took life right away ... and the 'hot water' came right away as well," Martin said with a laugh.

However, Don't Have to Ask promises undying fidelity, and he sings it with a sincerity that leaves no room for questions. He describes it as "a true, open, honest and sincere love song" and quite appropriately, it's on a rhythm called 'Happy Wife'.

"I appreciate this song for what it is because it speaks about true love in its deepest form. We talk about loving this person from high school [and] they probably didn't believe that it would turn out this way, but the love that you had, you knew that it would be this way from the start. But, as an artiste, I can wake up tomorrow and get another inspiration to write a song about something else, and maybe some badness is involved in it; and I will not shy away from it, because I'm a true creative," he said.

The singer, who classifies his music as "sugar reggae", commented that he is part of the evolving process of lovers' rock.

"I came up with sugar reggae. It's always been my moniker. And that is the evolution of lovers' rock in my books. And I'm very integral because I am moulding that future. Sugar reggae...one Sugar Reggae King," Martin declared.