Portrait Of: Miguel

This is Latino USA, the radio journal of News and Culture Latino US. Latin Latino USA. I'm Maria Inojosa. We bring you stories that are underreported but that mattered to you, overlooked by the wrest of the media, and while the country is struggling to deal with these, we listen to the stories of black and Latino Studio United Latino Front, a cultural renaissance organizing at the forefront of the movement. I'm Maria Inojosa, Cepaso, Latino USA. Listener on show the ros Achivos.

You know do liquados No, I would do liquado's. You know, I'm the best.

What would she put in?

You know, bananas, bananas, milk, bananas?

You should put an egg in it?

Yeah, she.

Raw egg.

From Fudu Media and PRX. It's Latino USA. I'm Maria Rosa and today a portrait of Miguel. His name is actually Miguel Pimentel and you know him as a Grammy Award winning artist from la He's the son of an African American mother and an immigrant father. Born in Samora, mitrok Gan in Mexico, Miguel rose to prominence as an R and B singer, and he's often been compared to Prince for his eclectic sound, which draws from a wide range of musical currents.

Tell how strange, says wee last kid.

Miguel is getting more and more acclaim and at the same time, he's increasingly embracing his Latino roots. Last year, the hit movie Goco featured a version of the song remember Me, which Miguel sang with Mexican pop singer Natalia la Furgade. Miguel performed the song earlier this year at the Oscars. This year, he'll be releasing a deluxe version of his album War and Leisure, which will include some

It's a pleasure to be here.

So tell me about growing up. I mean, everybody knows Miguel the Artist. I want to try to understand a little bit about how you were growing up, and I've been thinking a lot about my own experience. So, like, you know, my family was fully Mexican growing up in Chicago, but my parents' best friends were African America.

Well, I mean, that's like a crazy parallel because I grew up in a black, a Mexican kind of part of sam Pedro, which is a smaller part of Los Angeles. You know, I'm born in the eighties eighty five. I grew up in the nineties. There was a lot of racial tension between blacks and Mexicans in Los Angeles in the nineties.

Racial conflict like this between blacks and Latinos. It's ripping through southern California.

You know, my mother was extremely, extremely devout, So on the one hand, my mother was very religious. My father not my mother obviously, being black, my father Latino Mexican. A lot of contrast growing up. But growing up in San Pedro, I actually kind of got the past because most people in the community knew who I was.

So who are you living with when you're growing up?

It's mostly my mother, mostly my mother, my father fought as hard as he possibly could to spend as much time as he possibly could with my brother and I, and he drove out from Englewood over the weekends every other weekend to visit us. He picked us up, dropped us off. We saw him over the summertime. He's an educator, he's a teacher.

Is that why you know Spanish?

Well, yeah, because in the summertime, I was with my nana and my data. So are my father's parents, Okay, and so all of my theos and theos, my uncles and my aunts, kids, my cousins. We stayed with my grandparents in the summertime while our parents in Inglewood.

In Inglewood, so y'all were just like family daycare Mexican summertime.

Yeah, there we go. Oh my god, my favorite, what did you summertime?

Because my father was a teacher, he also was off in the summertime, so we spent man summers were the best, my dad the best. Some of my most fond memories going to the beach, Venice Beach were there all the time.

And I love the fact that I see a lot of people of color, a lot of mexicandoles out there with the whole family.

You already know.

Ye, it was beautiful, I mean still is beautiful energy in Venice. But not only that, because sometimes my father taught summer school, so a lot of time with my nana, lots of MTV, lots of puzzles with my Tata, and board games with my grandfather. My tata what board games, man, We played Trouble, we played Uno, and he would like, he would like sometimes we didn't want to play, but by four he would be like, no, we're gonna play.

Did you start singing like when you were three?

Oh yeah, no, no, no, I was. I was always singing. That was kind of the part of it. It was like I was the kid that everyone knew that I was gonna do something. I was always singing, dancing, performing like at three, like early yeah, early on, like yeah, as soon as I could, as soon as I could dance, as soon as I could use my legs. It was like, you know, singing, dancing, all of these things. Yeah, are you kidding?

At our family parties type.

Thing, you were just like me, game, yeah, dance. It was like, come on, meget They called me Mikey when I was younger. You know, I love Michael Jackson growing up, so I was, you know, getting my Michael Jackson moves in and that was the thing, you know, at family parties, family gatherings, That's what I was doing. Put the music on, Come on dance, Mikey.

Do you remember like your first memories of music.

Early memories with music, I mean being in Los Angeles car drives, car rides and music.

That's where we got it in. I remember my mom driving me to school early.

For some reason, my vivid memories with music and my mother come from like fifth grade.

So what were you listening to when your mom was driving you to school?

Those car rides were like soul music, a lot of classic stuff, you know, a lot of Temptations, and then all the R and B stuff at the time.

You know Anita Baker.

You see, and she was singing and you were too.

Absolutely car yeah yeah yeah, or she would go what what instrument is playing this part?

Oh? Yeah? And my brother, which was really cool.

And then when your dad was driving.

That could be anything. That could be some eighties raps, It might be the Fujis. I remember my father was playing at the Fuji's tape at the score. That very first album to score by the fujis the World They ca j.

Do you remember singing along to any of those songs.

And the cover that Lauren did of.

Oh it's early and I and I'm not going.

To remember song names right now, that's okay. Whoa I heard he sang a good song.

Oh, I heard he had a.

Style ROBERTA Flack.

And when I came to see and so I came to see him in this and for a while, and there he was young a staying to.

Show me in my pain, killing there we go seeing in my.

Life with as well, Yeah, killing me softly with his song, killing me softly.

With his song.

Coming up on Latin Usa. My conversation with Miguel continues, stay with us, not with this song. Hey we're back. And before the break, the singer Miguel painted a picture of his childhood growing up in Los Angeles. And now we're going to talk about Miguel's first ever visit to Mexico. It was part of the Earthwork series for Viceland. How

Man.

The opportunity was this.

They were picking artists that they thought were interesting and you know, had a perspective to choose a place in the world to go. I could have chose anywhere, but I was like, I want to go to Shamora, I want to go to Metro Khan and and can I take my father? And can I go with my brother as well? Can I bring them? And they were like, yeah, even better. Most people think of me solely as a black artist. But there's a reason why my name is Miguet.

And so that was the whole thing.

You know, I wanted to be about family, kind of a family discovery and also to learn about, you know, where my family's from.

So what was the thing like when you think back on that trip into Meatwa Gun what's the thing that you're like that that moment.

Oh, dinner with family, see it such a good one.

Honestly, having conversations with like my grandparents.

I've never had that. This helps me appreciate all of those moments.

How many family were there.

I mean it must have been at least twenty twenty five.

That so I wondered if you were I wondered if you were a little dizzy. It was so much huggy and food and laughter and the smile on your face.

Yeah, it is a great memory.

No one poke that.

We see.

The feeling is the same if we know each other are Gon and I only know that because I'm here now.

Ye.

That definitely was was an immersive experience.

Full body, yes, absolutely, full body.

So this thing everybody hugging on you, yeah, man, And and that was actually the best part. Is that energy that you kind of share when it is like you get to really it's tangible and you get to hug them.

Those hugs are real.

When you get a hug from people that you share blood with, that's a different kind of energy you're starting to exchange, you know. That was a big part of that feeling, Like I was right at home in a completely foreign place.

So then you go to the radio station where your grandmother used to sing.

Yeah, yeah, Miguel DNA.

When she was much younger before she was with my grandfather, Her and her sister and their friend, I believe, sang on.

They were like a trio on the radio.

Wait what so you got a chance to sing inside the very radio station in Mexico that your grandmother used to sing in. Oh my god, I mean that must have been incredible. I mean at that moment, did you feel like this deep connection to your family?

Yes, my grandmother is the real route.

You start to take a look at the journey and the sacrifice and all of that, and that just feels like you are rooted in a much bigger picture and a bigger story and a bigger thing than yourself.

I want to take a listen to a Los Banchos song that you covered along with your dad and your brother in a tribute to her.

City event side.

Sea Bloody.

S Chemist.

You're now about to do a whole album in Spanish.

Yeah, So, Warren Leisure is my latest album.

I've re recorded the majority of the album in Spanish, and so this will be my very first Spanish release. I've included Spanish in my album prior to this one, which is Wildheart.

This will be my.

Largest effort in being able to tour in Mexico.

Essentially Splashes.

That trip made it for me. It turned into a reason to come back because I was like, Wow, I have family here, I have roots here. How am I going to make sure that I'm coming back here to never forget this, to never forget the full circle and to always, you know, continue to remain rooted here.

And it was like, Okay, I have.

To record music in Spanish. I have to record more music in Spanish. And so that's what I did.

Na tell me about your decision to record some of your songs in Spanish, because that is not easy.

That's really hard.

Actually, it's challenging to try to translate lyric and to keep it within the theme the song.

The awesome thing was that the songs are better, are more poetic in Spanish. So the very first single is a song called Banana Clip.

There's what.

Just and the analogy of the song in English is essentially saying like you never have to worry, My love for you will never run out.

I have extended love and protection for you.

That's kind of like the metaphor of the song, but in Spanish it's more poetic. You know what message is more poetic.

Singing throw.

Mmmortio, hey yo this battle and look yet no portire yeah you lisparo.

La baton lettah yeah, slam single.

It's not the fact, it's the same message. Just like all of this I do for you.

I gotta say I love. I love watching you and hearing you speak Spanish.

It's going to happen more gon tempo practica. But I have gone Maine, and as I said, that's the goal. Lametta, Lametta love the.

Word meta Spanish.

It's such a great wordta.

Too proper for the black kids, too black for the Mexicans, too square to be a hood.

What's normal anyway to.

Being Mexican and being black is really a challenge in this country. You have a huge platform, right, so what you say and how you say it about all of this stuff, I hate that.

I know that.

That's so uncool for knowing that, but yeah, that's right.

But it is a platform that you created, right. It is your heart, your life, your work, your vision, your face. Do you feel this particular pressure, dude? I am black, and I am Mexican in this particular moment, and I'm an artist.

I feel an opportunity. By chance, I happen to be both and I can identify with both. So it's beautiful and I think that's why I do think it's important that I do take moments to acknowledge and to hopefully shed light or even bring my fans with me, to educate myself on.

What the issues are, the injustices are.

The crowd's life.

So involved in my own life, spend time on my family, concerned about what I was doing.

My family journey has a lot to do with things like immigration, you know what I mean, and my grandmother coming here from Mexico.

I would never be sitting here with you.

I just would have never been able to do any of this had my grandmother not left Samora, come to the States, California, Inglewood, raised her family there with my grandfather, my father meeting my mother in high school in Inglewood, and here I am.

It would have never happened without my grandmother being an immigrant.

You know, I never feel like I belong. I want to feel my God along somewhere.

And it's been such a pleasure spending.

Some time with you a pleasure's mine.

It's a pleasure to share, you know, a bit of where I come from and get to talk about the music that's coming.

You know, I'm excited about it, so thank you.

I mean, we're very excited.

The crown and that I never feel a gable. I just want to feel the gable.

Singer and songwriter Miguel Demente. This episode was produced by Janie Jamoca. It was edited by Sophia Palisaka, and it was mixed by Stephanie Lebou. The Latino USA team includes Andrea Lopez, Brussavo, Marta Martinez, Mike Sargent, Victoria Strada and Rinaldo Leanos Junior, with help from RODIMR. Marquez. Our senior engineer is Julia Caruso. Our marketing manager is Luis Luna. Our theme music was composed by Saner Renos and your host and executive producer Maria no Kosa. Join us again

Chao.

Latino USA is made possible in part by the Annie Casey Foundation. Creates a brighter future for the nation's children by strengthening families, building greater economic opportunity and transforming communities. California Endowment building a strong state by improving the health of all Californians. And the Heising Simons Foundation unlocking knowledge, opportunity, and possibilities. More at hsfoundation dot org.

Mexicans love Michael Jackson.

I mean everyone loved Michael j Everyone loved Michael Jackson.