Miguel

Birth Name: Miguel Jontel Pimentel
Birthplace: San Pedro, California
October 23, 1985 – Present
Years Active: 2004 – Present

R&B singer Miguel grew up in a middle-class Hispanic community in San Pedro, California with a Mexican-American father and African-American mother. His love of music started young with his father being an amateur musician who was a fan of Funk, Hip Hop, Jazz and Classic Rock. However, it was his mother who introduced him to R&B.

Miguel started pursuing a career in music in his early teenage years, working at a local production company called Drop Squad. In 2004, he signed with an independent record label called Black Ice, where he finished his first album Young and Free in 2006. Miguel left the label in 2007 after a disappointing experience and joined Jive Record (eventually becoming part of RCA) where he wrote songs for Usher, Musiq Soulchild and Asher Roth while some legal issues were resolved over his departure from Black Ice.

In 2010, Miguel released All I Want Is You, which earned him a spot touring with Trey Songz and Usher. However, his next two songs “Sure Thing” (which became popular again on TikTok in 2022) and “Quickie” found their way to No. 1 and No. 3 on Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Singles chart.

In 2012, he released his second album Kaleidoscope Dream and the song “Adorn” received the Grammy Award for Best R&B Song. In 2017, he released his fourth album with RCA called War and Leisure, which contained the popular song “Skywalker” with Travis Scott. This album was slightly different from the previous albums, with social commentary on what the U.S. looked like in 2017.

Miguel has said that he is inspired by Prince, Queen, Lenny Kravitz, Kendrick Lamar, Glasser, and Grizzly Bear.