When acclaimed LA singer and songwriter Miguel dropped his third album, Wildheart, last summer, critics hailed the diverse, hard-driving effort as a breakout, moving away from the slow-simmering R&B label plastered to his earlier music. But fans and listeners who dug deeper than inescapable hits “All I Want Is You,” “Sure Thing” and “Adorn” knew that Miguel had been dipping into rock, funk, old-school soul and moody electronic flourishes from the start. With tracks like the romantic “Coffee,” the anthemic “Face the Sun” and the sweaty “Damned,” he is simply continuing his personal sonic evolution.
“I was put on this earth to express myself, and that doesn’t have any title to it,” Miguel told us in August as he began his Wildheart tour. “Critics use genres to help identify or relate a sound, but that has nothing to do with the creative process. There’s always going to be a layer of soul in my music, because that’s just who I am, but I’m in love with rock ’n’ roll, too, and I’ll always explore beyond those.”
His diverse sound blends with a rockstar-confidence energy to create a supercharged live show, the reason Hakkasan snagged Miguel for a rare live performance at the MGM Grand nightclub—a powerfully appropriate fit for the behemoth Super Bowl/Chinese New Year weekend. Miguel live at Hakkasan at MGM Grand, February 5.
