Miguel’s return to the spotlight with his new album Caos marks the end of an eight-year stretch without a full-length release, but he’s already setting his sights on what comes next.
The singer revealed in a recent Genius interview that another completed album is sitting in the vault, and he believes it surpasses the one he just dropped.
When asked whether fans should expect another long pause between albums, he responded immediately: “No.” He went on to share that the unreleased music is “better” than Caos, and that if he had the power to move freely, fans would already have a release date. “If it was up to me, I’d put another album out before the tour starts,” he explained.
However, Miguel says label restrictions are holding everything up. Because of contractual terms with RCA Records, he isn’t allowed to release new music until late next year. Although he acknowledges there are people at RCA who “understand and want to do the right thing,” he believes the structure of his current deal is fundamentally flawed. “I would sooner release it independently than to allow them to pick up the deal without it being a fair deal,” he said. “And it’s not a fair deal, and I’m happy to go on record about that.”
For Miguel, the conflict is part of a broader industry pattern he no longer wants to accommodate. He has ownership of his intellectual property, and the next phase of his career, he says, needs to be centered on independence. “There’s absolutely things that need to happen that I would prefer to happen as an independent artist,” he added.
Looking ahead, he hopes to use the next decade to uplift other creatives. “My next 10 [years] is me really taking what I’ve learned and hopefully educating and stewarding other artists,” he said.
Releasing Caos after so many years stirred emotions he hadn’t expected. “It’s been such a long time since I put music out that I forgot how you can never explain or expect all of the emotion,” he shared. The response from his peers has been overwhelming. “I’ve gotten more notes about this album … than I’ve ever gotten for any of my projects,” he said. “It’s been really, really dope, and it’s a really endearing and reassuring thing.”
