Miguel’s covers the 83rd issue of Fader
“It’s not like I speak like a fucking hood dude,” Miguel says, discussing the misconceptions that followed his debut over spinach salad and mint lemonade the next night at a small restaurant near his apartment. “My mother is a very eloquent woman, and my father is a teacher. Between the two, they raised me to speak a certain way. So the way I spoke, the way I dressed, all of that was like, ‘Wow, wait a second. This isn’t black… Oh, then he must be gay.’ Now, whether or not I’ve worn things that are questionable—oh my god—I look at pictures of shit I’ve worn, and you know what? I don’t really blame anyone. I get it. But I was learning. I was trying to hold on to some sense of individuality in the midst of being convinced that I had to appeal to a certain kind of crowd.” On the cover of All I Want Is You, Miguel’s small head is shaved; he sneers behind oversized, frameless, red-lensed sunglasses and a leather jacket with a triple-high collar, pulled up to his ears. “I was exclusively marketed as an ‘urban artist,’” he says with air quotes, “and I mean that in the most generic way. But I have never been one to live within a stereotype. My lifestyle has always been alternative in comparison to what’s expected from an ethnic male from Los Angeles. With my first album, not only was I being misunderstood, I was misunderstood, and it was distracting people from the music. Now, I want to make sure that everything I do is the best, most rounded projection of who I really am.”
