Miguel is back. On his latest album, Wildheart, he is in familiar form, yet pushing the bar far higher since his last offering.
“This album is more aggressive than Kaleidoscope Dream. I feel it is a whole lot more rock ’n’ roll. I am rooted in soul, but have a deep love for rock ’n’ roll so I was going for a balance in the two. I wanted the album to sonically sound like twilight. Or like sunset, you know, when the sun hits the ocean and you get the oranges, blues and pinks in the sky. It’s the most intense beauty and I want that to be the way this album sounds,” he said.
Although many people only caught on after Kaleidoscope Dream, Miguel had made his point on his first album, All I Want is You. Wildheart is set to out-do all that.
“I put the most pressure on myself. I have accepted that I am never going to write another Adorn or Kaleidoscope Dream, and I am not trying to. Those who know how I operate are aware that all the music I make is a snapshot of my life at the time I make it. I am in a different place now and naturally I am going to write music which is going to make sense to me now. This is to be expected from artists who live through their music,” he said.
“I have no pressure to duplicate some songs that I made in the past, the only personal pressure I have is to reach higher levels of success and new fans,” he added.
On the previous album, we had the classics Adorn, Do You? and the playful P***y is Mine. On Wildheart, Miguel had other ideas.
“The very first line in the very first song sums it up as it says: Don’t ever sell yourself short for a second. That’s Wildheart. It’s taking the time to find out who you are and what you stand for. Fighting what society deems normal. The moment people fight what we call ‘normal’ and live their dreams, then we will have happy people. We need more happy people. I’m aiming at contentment, but not complacency. Nothing of note was ever built without having to ignore the social constraints out there and that’s what I want to do with this album,” he explained.
“This is a notion that I live by. I probably don’t do it as much as I should, but I am f***ing human, but I do know that I have fans who pay attention to what I am saying in my music. I feel responsible for them. I am showing them that I do something that I love and I hope they, too, can have what they want without having to sacrifice. It’s such a huge conversation, but I want to say to all my fans that if you figure out what you want to really do with you life, and you chase after it, I can guarantee you more happiness and I can only say that from personal experience,” he added.
Although he did most of the songs solo, you will be glad to know that he featured two artists, Kurupt and Lenny Kravitz.
“When I wrote N.W.A I had to ask myself who our real N.W.A was and Kurupt was the perfect fit. I grew up at a time when N.W.A was on its way out so I had to find who was our n**** with attitude. With Lenny, we worked on something that wasn’t for the album at his home, but the song was so good I could not resist,” he said.
So when do we get to hear Wildheart live?
“I have to come back to South Africa, I had the best time on the last tour,” said the singer.
• Wildheart is available on iTunes and in music stores.