Cyrus Langhorne
[With his new “Wildheart” finally available, R&B stud Miguel talks to SOHH about his fearless approach to his third solo release.]
I can only say that with this album I wanted it to be more subconscious in that if I wanted to do a song about partying I wasn’t going to judge myself for it. If I wanted to say, “I want to f**k you like we’re filming in the valley,” I wasn’t going to judge myself for it. If I wanted to be introspective and say, damn, these were some of my insecurities, like being too proper for the black kids, or being too black for the Mexicans, and so on and so forth, I wasn’t going to stop myself from doing that.
And so this album was more inspired, it was like wanting to capture a few different things. I wanted the album to be distinctly my Los Angeles album. I wanted it to ground me with my fans and to be a statement that hey, I’m really f**king born and raised in L.A. I’m not from New York. People from different places think I’m from all over the place. And what the f** is he? His name is Miguel. He sings. He looks like he’s Asian. There were all these people unsure of where I’m from, what I am, and so on and so forth.
So, there’s a bit of wanting to establish an identity with this album, but not only with setting, but also with, I guess just being unapologetic, yes, I guess that’s the word, just caring less about the presentation of it and just giving it. And I think subconsciously that’s why it is a bit more aggressive. It’s a more aggressive album sonically.
And that’s where I am. That’s a very honest representation of my energy in person. All of it is. It really truly is the closest album I’ve been able to give thus far. And it only makes me more confident to allow my fans in closer and closer for the subsequent album, and the following albums. So, it’s exciting to me.
