Miguel on embracing chaos, conquering TikTok, and the 'aggressive' sounds of his first album in n...

Two years after scoring a new hit with a 13yearold song, the shapeshifting R&B artist has no desire to revive his old formula: &34;I'm not a restaurant. You don

Two years after scoring a new hit with a 13-year-old song, the shape-shifting R&B artist has no desire to revive his old formula: "I'm not a restaurant. You don't come to me when you want me to make your favorite thing."

Miguel on embracing chaos, conquering TikTok, and the 'aggressive' sounds of his first album in nearly a decade

Two years after scoring a new hit with a 13-year-old song, the shape-shifting R&B artist has no desire to revive his old formula: "I'm not a restaurant. You don't come to me when you want me to make your favorite thing."

By Shania Russell

Shania Russell

Shania Russell is a news writer at *, *with five years of experience. Her work has previously appeared in SlashFilm and Paste Magazine.

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October 6, 2025 12:00 p.m. ET

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Success is no sure thing, but Miguel has never been less afraid to take the risk.

It's been eight years since the Grammy-winning R&B artist last graced his fans with a full-length album, and the pressure is on. Still, at 39, Miguel knows it's best to embrace the chaos and let change come — it's the only way to rebuild. That's what his latest project, *Caos*, is all about. If the hiatus and shifts in culture mean he'll have to prove himself to the world once again, that's nothing new.

"If I'm being really candid, every album I've had to prove myself," Miguel tells **. "First album, I had the kind of support from a label that was expected. But it wasn't beyond. It wasn't like they really put their money behind me. The music did it. My audience did it."

While Miguel embraced mixtape releases to keep the momentum going before his breakthrough sophomore album, 2012's acclaimed *Kaleidoscope Dream*, fans called into radio stations to request his music. Then, in 2023, he witnessed a modern twist on the audience-demand model when his song "Sure Thing" became a viral TikTok hit 13 years after its initial release, eventually launching back into the *Billboard* Hot 100 and taking the top spot on *Billboard*'s U.S. Pop Airplay charts.

Miguel's reaction? "It's about damn time," he says. "I really have my fans to thank for that. But it is a nice little 'I f---ing told you' when a song comes back and it goes number one the way it should have when it was originally released, you know?"

But make no mistake, Miguel isn't that interested in conquering radio and streaming, or reviving his old sound because it seemed to resonate more a decade-plus later. "I'm not a restaurant," he tells EW. "You don't come to me when you want me to make your favorite thing that you order every time you go there. I'm an artist."

He's confident that his real fans, who are more interested in his daring detours and evolution, will be hooked by what *Caos* has to offer. "I'm expressing the truth of my emotions through my work and that's the value," he says. "I want to continue to grow and show my change, as opposed to finding a winning recipe and rinsing and repeating that for the rest of my life."

A lot of life has happened between Miguel's 2017 release, *War & Leisure, *and *Caos.* In addition to a global pandemic, a social reckoning or two, and the broiling state of America's politics, the singer has become a father, gained a new following through his aforementioned TikTok resurgence, and watched the music industry morph — some would say crumble — around him. His most personal record to date, *Caos* bleeds emotion as he grapples with grief, heartache, and shock at the state of the world. The album's darker, fuller sound finds Miguel channeling, as he puts it, "all of the angst" in the music he grew up with: '90s grunge, garage, jungle, and alternative.

"At the core, the message of the album has so much to do with change, and that does require aggressive vigilance," Miguel says of the record's heavy-hitting moments.

Here, Miguel gives us a taste of what to expect from *Caos* and this next chapter in his career.

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**: This is your first album in eight years — big number.**

**MIGUEL: **Big number. Really big.

**Do you see this album as a reintroduction to Miguel? **

To be fair, every album is a reintroduction. Things move differently now. I think we all know that. The difference this time is that I'm at the helm, and overall what we do now has so much more relevance to the broader goal as opposed to like, "Let's get attention really quick" and "Let's get the big hit." So I'm moving with a lot of confidence and belief in the mission, and enjoying seeing my fans show up.

**What do you think that time, those eight years, brought to the music?**

Introspection and dimension are so much more a part of this process, and will ultimately make up the body of work. A lot of life has happened in between, and it would happen whether it was 10 years ago or 20 years ago. Eight years is nearly a decade, so there's gonna be some big changes. But also, our lives have sped up, and cycles of culture have sped up in their revolutions.

**In some ways, *Caos* feels more aggressive, more rock-forward, maybe a little darker than what fans have heard from you before. Was that intentional?**

It evolved into that naturally. Change requires an aggressive position, an aggressive outlook, an aggressive approach. It's not something that happens lackadaisically, and chaos is meant to call attention to the conditions that are necessary for change. So, I felt it was very organic and very natural for the music to take that tone.

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**There's a lot of talk — both in the music and from you — about the idea of rebirth and having parts of you die to get to a place where you can be reborn. What parts of yourself, artistically and personally, did you say goodbye to while making this album?**

Whatever the opposite is of accountability. Whatever that is. I think really taking the driver's seat and taking the wheel and acknowledging that it really is my attention or avoidance — of the lane of traffic, of the speed limit, of all the signs — those decisions are mine. And I can either crash out or I can lock in. That's definitely the difference with this album.

courtesy miguel

**"Angel's Song" and "New Martyrs" feel like songs in which you yearn for a better world. How did you sit down to make music when the world is basically crumbling? **

Sheesh. [*Laughs*]

**Just a light one for ya.**

Light, light. One real light one. Yeah. Whew. How do you sit down? I mean, that's the thing. I try my best to just go with whatever I'm feeling and get the critic out of the way. It's hard. It's really hard when we're looking at real news, when we can see every day that humanity is being ignored. To be so desensitized to things, it's hard to know whether or not expressing that humanity is — I don't know — if it matters. But when I come into the studio, I have to remind myself that if it's felt, then it matters. Whether or not everyone needs to hear it, that's a whole other thing. That's different. But to express it, I think, is the whole purpose. That is the beauty of what I get to do, and the blessing that I have of being an artist and having an audience.

Coming in and working on songs like "New Martyrs" and "Angel's Song," I had the opportunity to take something that felt universal and bring light to things that are concerning and pair them. For "New Martyrs," I think that angst of "how much can I lose without changing who I am" is a universal feeling. We all take losses, and I think right now a lot of people feel disenfranchised, and they feel like they've lost a lot, in one way, shape, or form. They've looked at the systems and looked at how they've been failed.

"Angels Song" is one of those — you know, every parent looks at the world and is like, "Okay, what am I leaving to my child?" I think any parent is gonna go, "Look at this — like, I'm gonna raise my child in the midst of all of this? How do I protect them? How do I prepare them? How do I keep hope?" So these are songs where we were able to kind of do both, where I feel like it matters.

**I love the line "the love can't be silent when the system isn't equal."**

Ooh, you caught that.

**It's a bar. Can you talk a bit about where that came from?**

There's plenty of quotes that really stem from the '60s. When the big push here in the United States was around civil rights, that was a big thing. It was like, 'We can't be silent.' That was what got people to really galvanize and speak out finally, and take action and congregate and walk and stand up. So it's just calling back to that same message.

I think the song is more [about] how we're gonna see it happen in more extreme ways. We are at that point where it feels there is no nice way about it. Charlie Kirk was one of those examples, unfortunately, where — and I'm not ignorant to all of the conspiracy possibilities and who it could have been and what it could have been — but I feel the spectacle of it is gonna become more and more common and accepted because of that overall feeling of disenfranchisement that I'm trying to touch on in "New Martyrs."

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**A few years ago "Sure Thing" had this big viral comeback moment on TikTok, and I still hear it on my feed all the time. How did you find out about that?**

I think it was a couple text messages. I was definitely not paying attention. I wasn't really in it, but my team at the label and on the management side, they were like, "Yo, this is having a moment. Have you seen this?" And I was like, "Oh, okay." And then it kind of grew from there. I was not paying attention whatsoever.

**Was it a surprise that it was that song? Or were you like, "It's about damn time"?**

I was for sure like, "It's about damn time." I was like, "Bruh— see?" I definitely turnt up. I was like, "F---, y'all see? Didn't want to get behind me."

**Wow. [*Laughs*]**

You hear a little bit of spite in my [voice]. Like, "Fuck them."

**Does it add extra pressure in the studio, when you're working on something entirely different after suddenly everyone is, like, looking back at this song that you've moved away from creatively?**

I just think the kind of musicians that I look up to were the ones that reinvented themselves in the way that life requires us to. So that's how I'm going about it.

**What do you think fans need to know about where Miguel is now, in this chapter of your career?**

I'm really just at the beginning. For me, this is the beginning because I have a much clearer sense of the opportunity I have. Not for myself per se, but to give what I wish I would've got along the way to those who are like me, who were just always a little left of center and who have the drive and the passion to express themselves in a world where expression is becoming less and less unique and quote, unquote marketable.

I want artists like myself — who come from neighborhoods like I grew up in— to have the stewardship and the platform that is required for our art and our ideas to thrive. So I'd like my audience to know now, please, to continue to express yourselves however feels the truest. We need true expression. We need the things that remind us that we're human beings and that these emotions we feel are universal, and that's what makes art and ideas. That's the purpose of art — to bring humanity together. And we need that the most these days.

*This interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.*

*Caos *is out Oct. 23.

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