Miguel’s whirlwind promo radio tour is in full swing as the 25-year-old swung through iHeart Radio’s Power 105.1 Breakfast Club Morning Show. He discussed a wide scope of things, from what he saw at the BET Hip Hop Awards (slight tension between crews), and sleeping with girls who are friends (while on a break from his current relationship).
He also addressed the gay rumors that surfaced upon his debut two years ago. The singer-songwriter admitted his image was a little odd, saying it was a mixture of the marketing of the record company mixed with his desire to keep his individuality. “I was just trying to be myself in the midst of being pressured to be something that I wasn’t. So I found myself making choices – you know when someone’s rushing you to make a decision? Sometimes you don’t make the best decisions because you’re just trying to keep up,” he said.
He isn’t fazed about the rumors. Matter of fact, he’s aware it’s something that comes with fame; it’s the music that’s important, after all. “I don’t want to do anything that detracts from the authenticity of who I am as an artist. People are going to say what they’re gonna say. You can’t really try to please other people, but as long as what you’re doing is real, then they have to respect that,” he stated.
Speaking of gay rumors, the Breakfast Club DJ’s asked Miguel his thoughts on Frank Ocean’s public coming out. He found the timing of Ocean’s announcement interesting. “It could have been a marketing ploy, who’s to say,” he hypothesized. “At the end of the day, as a grown aâ man, I don’t really care what the sexuality of the next man is.”
The crew soon got to the nitty gritty of his newest album Kaleidoscope Dream. “The whole album is more my perspective on my life…my first album was more about romance, this is kind of like, just my lifestyle.” Miguel vows to stay true to the creativity that, he says, used to be in R&B. He says this album stays true to the genre in the sense that the soul is present in the music, while creativity is its delivery; in essence, you can’t put R&B in a box because it gave way to other forms of musical creative expression. “There were bands like Funkadelic, there were artists like Jimi Hendrix, groups like Hall & Oats…they all were pulling from soul, and people forget R&B put hip hop on, really put rock on.”