Miguel
Miguel's fifth studio album, "Caos," comes eight years after his last album.
Miguel

NEW YORK — Miguel is getting to the bottom of things.

The singer has been interrogating his life, which has unfolded in more ways than one since the last time fans heard an album from the R&B crooner, whose hits like "Sure Thing" and "Adorn" endeared him to the certified lovers.

His fifth studio album, "Caos" (out now), comes eight years since his last, 2017's "War & Leisure." A sonic investigation wrapped in an end-of-the-world rave groove, "Caos" marks an aggressive, hedonistic departure from the flirtations and playful sensuality of his previous records.

"The sound of the album was very much inspired by that nonlinear kind of aggressive tone that I think, at least personally, I've had to take with myself and really get to the bottom of things," Miguel tells USA TODAY. "It's not an easy or happy or romantic process. I think it takes a lot of consideration. The album is the most aggressive body of work that I put together, but not without tenderness and not without real introspection. And I think that balance is what I was looking for."

Where songs like "How Many Drinks?" or "Come Through and Chill" offered a wink and a nod, "Caos" is a mosh pit mixed with a tender hug. "My music … has primarily leaned into the beauty of things. And this was about the ugliness and the challenges," says Miguel, who turns 40 the day "Caos" releases.

"Sometimes we're growing and changing without being aware. Other times it takes a real intention," Miguel says, now focusing on the "why" in his music.

When the singer-songwriter walks into the interview, he's armored up in a breezy black suit, black patent leather tabi loafers, sporty white sunglasses and a shield of silver jewelry.

For Miguel, "the past two years have been the most revelatory." The period from his last album to now has included hit singles with DJs and producers like Diplo, Tainy, Benny Blanco and Calvin Harris; a marriage, a separation and a divorce; four EPs and an almost album; and a son, whose 2024 birth Miguel announced weeks before before releasing "Caos."

If war and leisure were on the menu almost a decade ago, they're chaotically being served up nonstop today: Since his last album, we've seen two presidential administrations, the COVID-19 pandemic, unprecedented natural disasters from hurricanes to the wildfires in Miguel's hometown of Los Angeles, and violent ongoing conflicts worldwide.

"I'm smoking a lot of weed," he says. "Every day is like you're waking up and you're putting your armor on. I don't know what I'm going to see just by way of a thumb scroll that's going to really mess with the headspace ... All tools are necessary, like my workouts in the morning or meditations when I need five to 10 minutes have all been effective. A drink here and there, a little mezcal will always help soften the blows and just ease a little bit of the anxiety."

Though he has "some bad habits to work on," the newly minted New York University scholar-in-residence is dedicated to his musical "mission."

"I'm not a perfect person, but I've learned a lot along the way in terms of just managing my headspace," he says. "It's hard out here, man, for all of us. It's a struggle every day regardless of what it is. And everybody's got something that no one else knows about on their back that they're carrying."

He was working on a since-scrapped project, 2023's "Viscera," which eventually "evolved into this album, but that as a body of work didn't feel like the right representation of how I was feeling in the madness."

"I took the most timely and the most true (songs) to the overall purpose of this album and built around that," he says.

Though he's released Spanish versions of his popular songs on 2019's "Te Lo Dije," Miguel dove into writing and singing in Spanish on "Caos." The softly sung "El Pleito," translating to "the fight" and one of the first singles off the album, is the track Miguel is "the most proud of" and highlights "the real sense of pride that I have being Mexican."

Embracing more of his Mexican heritage musically coincides with the Trump administration's immigration crackdown since January, which he says "touches on totalitarianism."

"I'm not a politician. I don't pretend to be," he says. "But I know that we are born with a sense of what is right and wrong. I would wager my career on the fact that most people are looking at what's happening and feel like something is not right."

Miguel on fatherhood, dream collaborators and the unexpected connection he shares with his ex

When you look at Miguel's musical Mount Rushmore of greats – Miles Davis, Prince, Erykah Badu and Marc Anthony – it makes sense for his music to evolve into other deeper, darker facets of R&B.

"R&B music is in my soul, it's in my DNA," he says, noting his dream collaborators include DJ and producer Flying Lotus and Atlanta stalwart producer Jermaine Dupri.

The songs on the album focus as much on toxic relationships and ego wrapped in self-doubt ("Caos," "Rip,") as they do on the fear and hope that come with being a new parent ("Angel's Song," "Always Time").

He chokes up talking about fatherhood. Daily reality "becomes so much about how you're going to provide and make the best for an entirely different, brand new, untainted life. You start to look at your experience and you really key in on the things that were incredible and you want to shield from the things that were not so good."

The most rewarding part, he says, is when "my uncle called me and said, 'You got your smile back,'" his voice cracking with emotion. "I felt that so crazy. … I didn't have the greatest outlook for the world overall. And I think hope and faith are just different now."

Becoming a father came as he processed the end of a relationship. He married longtime partner Nazanin Mandi in 2018 and divorced in 2022. Though they're no longer romantically connected, the exes still share an interesting touchpoint.

"I share two cats with my ex-wife," a pair of Scottish Folds named Munchy and Vanity, he says. "For the most part we hold onto them separately. Then when we're busy, because we're both busy, we watch each other's cats when necessary."

He jokes that his cats and "my son are very much the same. They'll play with a toy for two seconds, and then they're like, 'Give me the random thing.' I don't know why. They both love boxes, like boxes and trash. They love to play with those things. So the house has become kind of just a lot of trash everywhere."

His relationship and entrance into fatherhood have been fodder for social media critics. Miguel has chosen to take a more positive view of tapping into the power of social media.

"Seeing all of the freedom of speech on these social media platforms and how they can affect our work, I think it's a fascinating thing and I love to be a student to that," he says. "I think that's why seeing art being silenced or artists being silenced hits so hard. It hits crazy because this is the one place in the world that freedom of speech is meant to be upheld."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Miguel is 'not a perfect person' and made sure that showed in new album, 'Caos'

Reporting by Anika Reed, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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